


matches burning holes in my soul

by belorehalla



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Bulimia, Childhood Trauma, Crying, Domestic Fluff, E rating is only for a few chapters also, Flashbacks, Gentle Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm, and a TOUCH of rough sex. but only like twice & even then its domestic and sweet regardless, components of this fic: therion's abysmal mental health & soft domesticity & strong platonic bonds, however. i gotta ask. what the fuck's happening in these tags, like a lot of it lmao
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:42:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28643151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belorehalla/pseuds/belorehalla
Summary: Therion’s last line of defense—it’s going to be torn down with pointed questions and observations. He isterrified.Cyrus takes a deep, steadying breath. He doesn’t want to mess this up. There is something he can say that will make Therion lock his feelings away again and he knows that.“There’s a divide between us, I feel like,” the scholar says finally. “And I—I'm sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I didn’t want to pry, but I fear my caution led me in the wrong direction. I didn’t even realize how far it feels you’ve drifted from me until I… until I woke to find you gone, and I panicked.”Guilt twists in Therion’s gut, sharper and more unforgiving than any knife could be. He wants to apologize. He wants to finally let himself break and dump out all the horrible feelings he’s been bottling up.That isn’t what happens.—————Or, the one where Therion is finally forced to confront how bad his mental health is, how this leads him to treat other people, and how he needs to get his shit together.
Relationships: Cyrus Albright/Therion
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title comes from "attention attention" by shinedown.
> 
> 1: therion has lots of issues, most notable being bulimia, ptsd, and bpd. this makes him a massively unreliable narrator at some points. for safety reasons, i'll leave disclaimers for when he's viewing things in a particularly unhealthy & bad way.
> 
> 2: there are descriptions of emaciation, and therion makes many internal justifications for bingeing, purging, and starving. there are also a few points where he glamorizes it. his justifications are easily deconstructed, but they go uncontested for a few chapters. please also note that most people with EDs like anorexia or bulimia never end up underweight. i gravitate toward portraying emaciation with EDs is because that's my (statistically unusual!) experience. there are EDs other than anorexia/bulimia, and ALL of them are fatal no matter your weight. people who never end up thin at all are just as sick and just as legitimate in their disorder as people who spend years emaciated.
> 
> 3: therion has really unhealthy thoughts that would be really fucked up if acted on. this is a normal part of having bpd, but it might be distressing to read if you have the same experience (you aren't bad if you do!!). therion is also sometimes incredibly unfair & is occasionally a kind of shitty boyfriend. cyrus is perfectly capable of holding his ground when therion is in the wrong, but that doesn't make it okay. therion owns up to his mistakes once he learns better, but that doesn't change that sometimes he's just 100% in the wrong
> 
> 4: therion makes internal justifications for his experiences of sexual abuse, and this goes uncontested for a bit. his perception of sex & intimacy is sometimes really bad as well

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **warnings: non-graphic mentions of sexual assault, internalized victim blaming, a vague reference to csa, internal justification (and, at points, glorification) of eating disorder behaviors (starving, bingeing, purging), a description of emaciation, & therion generally being unfair toward cyrus**
> 
> **hc lightning round before we get started:**  
>  \- therion is 5'5.5", cyrus is 6', alfyn is 5'8", prim is 5'7", tressa is 5'1"  
> \- everyone refers to cyrus as a man (including himself), but his gender is less "man" and more "not a woman." he is, as the kids are saying these days, none binanry. this isn't talked about, i just wanted you to know  
> \- i kind of feel like i shouldn't have to say this but cyrus is autistic and has adhd  
> \- others but we'll get to those later lmao
> 
> also worth noting that this fic operates with enough of a space between the beginning of the game up to this point that everyone's had their birthdays by now. so therion's 23, cyrus is 31, etc

Somewhere in the space between late night and early morning, Therion idly walks the streets of Atlasdam. The air is warm with the retained heat of the late-springtime sun that set hours ago, but not enough for Therion to want to lose his layers of clothing. It’s warm and vaguely humid as he inhales, but it feels more lukewarm against his skin.

He trusts his feet to navigate for him as he lets his thoughts wander. He knows Atlasdam like the back of his hand by now, able to get anywhere he wants to without needing to pay much attention. He doesn’t have a destination, which is often the case when he takes walks at night. It’s becoming a more and more frequent occurrence and beginning to span longer periods of time.

Sleeping is a challenge, no matter how much he desperately wishes he could, and he’s given up trying to find anything that will help. It’s exhausting, weighing heavily on his body and filling his head with a perpetual fog he can’t shake. There’s nothing left to do but walk around the city, lit by the moon and the stars and the flickering flames of streetlamps. Dots of silver sparkle against the deep black of the sky and the half-moon shines brightly, and Therion wishes somewhere in the back of his mind that he could go back to enjoying simple beauties like he once did. The world around him seems muted and has for a while, as though the colors he sees are processed as greyscale in his mind.

When did he stop appreciating something like a clear Flatlands night sky in late spring, anyway? He doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember a lot these days, and the horror of the realization drives him to dismiss it the best he can whenever it resurfaces. He’s been forgetting so much, many important things included.

He doesn’t remember what Cyrus made for dinner earlier, just that he didn’t eat it. He doesn’t remember the book Cyrus was talking about or when he’d gotten home. He remembers what he had for lunch and he remembers the huge meal he puked before his walk, but only because his memory has become quite sharp exclusively with matters of what he eats. He hates himself for it, being able to recall with such clarity everything about what he eats, but he clings tightly to it. It’s the only part of his memory that’s reliable anymore.

The awareness that he’s back at the home he shares with Cyrus only comes to him when he hears his name—an exclamation colored with relief. He stops in his tracks, trying to figure out if he’s been out long enough for morning to come despite it still being hours from sunrise. He’s been wondering stupid things like that lately, as though he’s lost all his wit. His brain is subdued, thoughts muddled, and that’s what he has to accept as his new normal.

It scares the hell out of him. He’s losing control of himself, losing the only parts of himself he was able to like, and he just wants it to stop.

But it won’t, because this is the trade-off he agrees to every single day.

“What are you doing awake?” Therion asks, feigning nonchalance.

“I suppose I could ask you the same,” Cyrus replies. His hair is mussed and he’s in his nightclothes, and he looks worried.

Therion shrugs. “I couldn’t sleep.” He walks past Cyrus to head inside. His hands are so cold he can barely feel them because they always are these days, but he hardly notices unless he needs to use them. Sometimes he’s so cold that it takes a bit of effort to heat his skin with magic, but that’s never done much to _truly_ warm him. It’s just part of the elaborate lies he’s constructed around himself. He doesn’t remember when they first started—of course he doesn’t, he doesn’t remember shit anymore—but he’s been carefully holding them all up regardless.

It’s only a matter of time before something blows over the house of cards that he’s carefully built lie by lie. The second he forgets something Cyrus remembers, or the second Cyrus notices something too concerning to let go, it’s _over_ and the rug will be pulled out from under him.

His stomach churns as he wonders if it’ll be tonight. He feels like it’ll be tonight. It’s late and he’s tired and he can’t think and his mind is already blanking at the idea of having to explain whatever his partner may have noticed.

“That _would_ make sense…” Cyrus muses as he follows Therion back inside, and as his words trail off, it’s obvious there’s more he wants to say.

Therion says nothing else. He hopes uselessly that Cyrus will stay silent as well, but of course that’s a stupid thing to hope for. It’s only a matter of time before the scholar speaks again, but for now he’s heading into the kitchen.

“I think there’s a discussion we need to have,” Cyrus says carefully, and to Therion’s relief, he’s not getting food but instead making tea. “Would you like some as well?”

Therion nods. He wants to speak, but he can’t find his words.

There’s another spell of silence. It ends when there’s a hot mug of unsweetened tea in Therion’s hands.

Cyrus sits on the counter, studying the other man leaning against the wall, and cautiously begins constructing a sentence. “I… I’m growing worried. You’ve seemed distant lately. I know things aren’t easy for you, and I appreciate it immensely that you’ve trusted me with so many of your traumas and phobias, so I’m hesitant to pry into anything, but I… I, ah…”

“Spit it out,” Therion snaps venomously. It’s unfair and knowing he’s still willing to speak to Cyrus in such a way makes him want to die, but he holds strong. This is all he can do. This is all he has left.

His last line of defense—it’s going to be torn down with pointed questions and observation. He is _terrified_.

Cyrus takes a deep, steadying breath. He doesn’t want to mess this up. There is something he can say that will make Therion lock his feelings away again and he knows that.

“There’s a divide between us, I feel like,” the scholar says finally. “And I—I'm sorry I didn’t say anything sooner. I didn’t want to pry, but I fear my caution led me in the wrong direction. I didn’t even realize how far it feels you’ve drifted from me until I… until I woke to find you gone, and I panicked.”

Guilt twists in Therion’s gut, sharper and more unforgiving than any knife could be. He wants to apologize. He wants to finally let himself break and dump out all the horrible feelings he’s been bottling up.

That isn’t what happens.

“What have I been doing?” he asks instead, because he’s sure he knows what to expect, but he doesn’t want to give more information than his partner has already deduced. Better safe than sorry.

“It’s been difficult for me to place,” Cyrus admits, fidgeting with his hands a bit. It’s a habit reserved for moments of upset or anxiety when he needs to keep himself calm, and it never goes unnoticed. “It’s—it’s—ah, I don’t want this taken the wrong way, because I never want you to do anything _you_ don’t want to, but… um, it’s, ah, it’s obvious in retrospect how you’ve been in sexual situations. I’m sorry if I’ve been pushy, Therion, I know—I _know_ you’ve had people… _take advantage_ of you in the past. I suppose I’d just like to reassure you that you never have to—”

“You haven’t been taking advantage of me,” Therion interrupts, somewhat hostilely, but the truth is that he’s not exactly sure what _being taken advantage of_ looks like. Rarely has he ever felt that was the case in sexual encounters, and now that he’s in his twenties, he’s decently certain it’s not even _possible_ for that to happen.

(Never mind that Cyrus was hesitant about a relationship upon finding out that Therion used to be—occasionally still is, when he misses… certain things— _absurdly_ turned on by the eight-year age gap. Never mind that there was a part of Therion that used to wonder if Cyrus only wanted to fuck him because of that age gap. Never mind the weird fixation Therion used to have on finding people older than himself to have his one-night stands with, and never mind that the fixation stemmed from things in his childhood he still doesn’t quite consider exploitative or abusive or even all that bad.)

“I… You’re _sure_?”

“Fucking obviously.”

“I just— It’s just that, in retrospect, it always seems like it’s about _me_.”

Therion stares at the amber-colored liquid in his mug. He’s only taken a few drinks and it’s nice to have something warm inside of him again without the need to force it all back up, but it feels _too_ nice. It feels dangerous and he’s hesitant to keep drinking it no matter how much he wants to. _It’s unsweetened,_ he tells himself, but he still hesitates a few moments longer before his next sip.

“Is that really the only issue you have here?” Therion asks finally.

Cyrus goes tense, more than he already was. “I… No, but I needed to make sure it wasn’t related to that.” He clears his throat, no doubt trying to bide his time for a even a few seconds longer to sort out how to proceed. “…You’ve been less touchy lately, too. And again, I have no desire to force you to do things you don’t want to nor to make you feel you have an obligation to. I’m simply just concerned I’ve done something wrong.”

The last few words knock the breath from Therion’s lungs with a force that’s intangible and invisible but no less violent for it. He doesn’t know what to say. Every issue has come from inside himself, with nothing to do with _anyone_ else—especially not Cyrus.

“You haven’t.”

“You also… you also haven’t seemed to be eating much lately.”

Therion’s breath catches. He’s going to be sick. Anything more and he’s going to keel over and vomit all over the kitchen tiles from nothing more than the fear and the shame.

Instead of allowing this to be an admission of sorts, he chooses to lie. Of course he lies. It’s the only thing he has left to defend himself. It’s the only way to convince people he’s worth keeping around. He knows it’s wrong, but he can’t be alone again—he knows better than anything else that he wouldn’t survive it. “I haven’t had an appetite. When I try to eat, it just feels like it’ll come back up.”

Cyrus’s eyebrows knit with concern and contemplation. “Why haven’t you said anything?”

“I have it under control.” And he _does_. It’s just that the control is his avoidance of food and the way he shoves his fingers down his throat every time he allows himself too much. The control is in how he eats only to survive and pukes up anything unnecessary.

It’s robbing him of his coordination, his skill, his forethought, his memory, his clarity, his wit—but it’s control. _It’s control._ He can stop if he wants, but he _doesn’t_ want to. It feels good to have his stomach as empty as his heart has always felt. No one else could do this. No one else could survive like this. No one else has the strength and discipline that he does. This is what control is.

His body is moments away from shutting down most of the time, and he pushes on anyway. He is empty but he is _powerful_.

“I… I’m not certain you do. I mean no disrespect, but love, it’s really starting to show.”

Therion almost perks up at that, but he dampens his reaction. He can’t be looking excited or validated that someone noticed, least of all when that person is Cyrus, because that would be _wrong_. People are supposed to notice, but he’s supposed to play stupid. It’s not like he doesn’t see how his cheeks are starting to hollow out or how his hands are bony or how his collarbones look like they might slice through his skin if he gets any thinner, but _admitting_ that he’s noticed before it’s described to him would just prevent him hearing it from someone else and it’d be an admission of there being a problem.

It’s for himself, ultimately, but he wants others to notice. More than anything he wants to know his hard work is paying off, and here’s Cyrus, telling him exactly what he desperately wants—but exactly what he _doesn’t_ , for the sake of preserving and furthering his progress—to hear.

Therion shrugs. “I guess I didn’t really notice.”

“Oh, darling.” Cyrus looks _heartbroken_ as he sets his tea aside, pushes himself off the counter, and approaches Therion. He cups the other’s jaw and runs a thumb over his cheek. “You’re even starting to get bony. I didn’t—” Shaky inhale, quick and sharp exhale. Cyrus is ready to break, but he’s holding himself together the best he can. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice until recently,” and his voice is hardly more than a whisper. “You’ve gotten so small. It’s like— In retrospect, it’s quite nearly like I’m watching you die in front of me. I know it’s been difficult for you to recognize that you deserve good things, but please, _please_ let me help you.”

The ruthless, poison-edged dagger of guilt once again buries its blade in Therion’s stomach, far deeper than before, and he can barely manage to breathe. Everything hurts. His heart aches, seeing the expression on Cyrus’s face and the hearing the way his voice trembles just slightly with trepidation.

 _He’s going to break,_ Therion realizes. As much as he loves being told he’s thinner, smaller, lighter, knowing the pain it inflicts almost counters that. He wants to hear again how he’s _starting_ to get bony as though he hasn’t been for a while, but the hurt it causes Cyrus would be almost too much for it to be worth.

_Almost. Almost._

Those instances of ‘almost’ are a source of white-hot regret and it adds to the nausea churning in Therion’s stomach. He’s struggling to breathe, to stay afloat, to keep from being pulled under and flayed by his own emotions. This is hardly the time to fall.

He wants to break just as badly as he can tell Cyrus does, but he won’t. Cyrus is someone who, despite maintaining a generally reserved sort of aura about him, wears his heart on his sleeve with the brazen naivete and foolishness of a man the world has yet to break—and right now, that fact is filling Therion with an inexplicable envy. He wants to cry and let Cyrus hold him until things start to feel better, but that isn’t what’s going to happen.

“I’m okay,” Therion snaps. His voice is icy like the hands pressed against his hot mug. He knows he’s a spiteful and angry person at heart; he tells himself that’s the truth, that he can’t help it. He has to believe, at least for the moment, that he can’t do better.

Maybe Cyrus doesn’t deserve better. He’s the idiot who agreed to date Therion, after all. He was signing up for a horrible time and he knew it.

 _No._ That’s a twisted justification. Therion knows he’s at fault. He knows he’s in the wrong and he can’t go pushing the blame onto others. He’s been doing that his whole life and Cyrus deserves so much better than that, even if he never hears the awful things Therion sometimes thinks.

“Therion…”

“I’m _fine_.” Because pretending that everything’s fine all he has left, and no matter how weak it is, he’s never been one to know when to give up a fight.

Cyrus swallows hard and his hand drops from Therion’s cheek. He looks _crushed_. “I’m sorry,” he apologizes, and his voice wavers and cracks.

“Fuck, no, Cyrus, I— _no_ , you didn’t…” Therion trails off. There’s nothing he can say to fix this. “ _I’m_ sorry.”

And that’s the final straw, it seems, because Cyrus sobs, takes a step back, and covers his mouth as his eyes fall closed, futilely attempting to hold back tears. “I didn’t mean to push you.”

Something that took a lot of getting used to was Cyrus’s emotions. They aren’t the volatile things that Therion’s are, but they’re placed forth unabashedly. There’s nothing but vulnerable honesty in every emotional change, in the ways he softens, even in his excitement—and just as much in the more difficult times, when Therion is suffering and Cyrus doesn’t know what to do and can’t swallow down the way that helplessness makes him feel.

“You didn’t.” Therion is nigh certain it’s the truth. “I think you should get some rest.”

Inexplicably, that gets another sob and the tears come. Cyrus is crying in the kitchen at some ungodly hour when he needs to be ready for work the next day— _later today_ , really—and it’s all Therion’s fault.

It’s always Therion’s fault.

Cyrus can see him dying, but people who are dying don’t feel fine. They don’t feel like everything is okay. They don’t feel like nothing is wrong.

His heartbeat goes unsteady and painful sometimes, his hands are cold all the time, his brain always feels slow as stupid, but he’s felt worse. He’s flirted with death before and it feels far worse than this.

“Cy…” Therion murmurs. He sets his tea aside and tries to muster up enough fire magic to warm his hands, but he’s struggling. He doesn’t know if he can right now, and he almost foregoes offering physical comfort—the type of comfort his partner has shown over and over he’s most receptive to—because of it.

He hates everything he is. He hates even more everything he’s becoming lately.

Therion pulls Cyrus into a hug, rubbing small circles against the scholar’s back. He hopes holding the hot mug warmed his skin enough that the cold can’t be felt through clothing.

“Do you want to go to bed now?” Therion asks as gently as he can. “You have to get up early.”

Cyrus nods, breathing still unsteady. “You’ll be coming to bed too?”

“Yeah. Come on.”

* * *

When they get to their bedroom, Cyrus isn’t crying anymore, and thank the Gods for that.

Therion considers changing into his nightclothes, but he doesn’t particularly want to. Cyrus was _right_ when he said sex had been almost exclusively focused on him, and it was because Therion didn’t particularly want to have the conversation that would follow if he showed how much his body had changed. He still some retained muscle, mostly in his legs, but it didn’t compensate for how much weight was lost.

There’s a sick, selfish part of him berating him with reminders of how validating it’d be to see the look of shock on Cyrus’s face, see his horror at the realization of how bad things really are. Another wave of nausea hits him as he entertains just how much of a dopamine hit he’d get from that, even if it came at the price of seeing his partner devastated.

He doesn’t get to deliberate further when Cyrus asks, “Shouldn’t you get changed? I, ah—I won’t watch if you don’t want me to.”

The last sentence comes out somewhat awkwardly, tentatively, as though it’s an odd offer. And maybe it is, considering how it’s been less than twelve hours since Therion had him entirely stripped to fuck him. But maybe it wasn’t, because Therion hadn’t undressed himself and only adjusted his clothes enough to have his dick out.

“I mean— I don’t know?” Therion wishes he had an actual answer, or at least the ability to hold a false air of confidence in his tone.

“Oh, are you… um.” Cyrus glances down, to the side, anywhere to keep from looking directly at Therion. “You’ve lost a _lot_ of weight, haven’t you?”

“…Yeah.”

“I—I might— um… If you can trust me with that, you have my word that I’d never pass judgment. I wouldn’t _ever_ think less of you, if this is something that’s causing insecurity.”

Therion doesn’t correct Cyrus’s incorrect read on the situation. Before he can stop himself, think through exactly what the hell he’s about to do, he starts stripping off his clothes. The room feels cold without the extra layers of protection, but he tries to ignore it. There he is, standing bare, his ribcage showing and the bones of his chest pressing against the skin covering them and his hipbones jutting out on either side below his near-concave stomach.

Yeah, he concludes instantaneously that this is a mess that could have been avoided.

There’s a certain shine to Cyrus’s eyes as he took in the sight of his partner, skeletal and slight—the glassy shine of tears welling up and being uselessly held back. This is messing with him far worse than Therion is capable of conceptualizing. Empathy doesn’t often come easily to him, and while it was a blessing when he was on the streets with no option for survival other than theft, it’s a curse now when he’s trying to be sensitive.

He tries so damn hard and fails so damn often.

Acting unbothered, he pulls on his nightclothes and mutters an apology. Cyrus says nothing, and Therion refuses to hazard a glance at him for fear of what emotion he might see.

When he settles into bed, Cyrus pulls him close, and he’s pretty sure his heart stops for a moment. He doesn’t know if he wants this sort of intimacy right now.

“I love you so much,” Cyrus murmurs. “Please allow me to help you?”

Therion wants to shove Cyrus away. He wants to scream about how stupid he is for being so sensitive and caring. He wants to shoot back that he doesn’t want help.

Instead all he says is, “Yeah.” It’s all he _can_ say. He feels scared and cornered, and it isn’t Cyrus’s fault but it feels like it is.

“I love you,” Cyrus says again, settling down comfortably and beginning to relax.

“I love you, too,” Therion says. It’s still a difficult phrase for him sometimes, but he has to try—especially now of all times.

There’s silence as the scholar slips into sleep. His deep, even breaths are comforting despite Therion himself being unable to fall asleep. He lies awake listening to his partner breathe, lulled by the sound as much as he can be.

* * *

He is still awake when Cyrus rises for work the next morning. He remains still and pretends he’s asleep as he listens to Cyrus get ready for his day and leave.

There’s an aching loneliness in Therion’s chest as he hears the front door close and lock. He quietly stays with the loneliness until he finally manages to slowly drift off an hour or two later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow i cannot believe i wrote a dozen chapters in like three weeks. this fic will update weekly (maybe biweekly.... haven't really decided yet lol). anyway, pretty insane how quick i wrote this. every time i opened my word doc i went a little bit feral a little bit batshit and now we are here.
> 
> and to any of my friends who might be reading this: no you aren't <3 don't talk to me about it don't even tell me you read it let me die with the assumption you never even clicked on it. my username is really recognizable if you know me so it's not like you don't know exactly who's behind this.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings: internal justification of ED behaviors + side effects, slight body checking, internalized victim blaming, non-graphic mentions of sexual assault, toxic/unhealthy thoughts*, masturbation as self harm, & an allusion to csa**  
> * the toxic thoughts involve therion thinking about taking his anger out on cyrus, guilt-tripping, and threatening suicide as manipulation. none of these things are acted on because he doesn't like having these thoughts. he also has a warped perception of things when he's caught up in an imagined possibility of abandonment, and he has some fucked up thoughts about sex that are not at all good.
> 
> there's penetrative sex in this chapter so please listen up because every single smut writer who isn't me stresses me the fuck out. all of you. oils and lotions weren't the only lubes of Ye Olde Times. oils are messy as hell and can lead to higher risk of infection due to trapping bacteria, and lotion is for external use only. some oils are sometimes recommended as lube alternatives but again, they're messy, and being "safe enough" to make it onto lists of lube alternatives doesn't make them less capable of trapping bacteria inside your body (and some is not all!). there are lubricants that predate oils anyway. most of you people are older than me!!!! i'm so stressed. stop doing this i am so worried about you

Therion awakes several times throughout his rest, mostly to birds chirping or to distant chatter outside—things he’d learned to sleep through in months past.

What has Therion awake for good is the sound of the front door being unlocked and opened. He doesn’t exactly _want_ to be awake, but it’s not as though he has a choice now. The afternoon light is filtering into the room, but despite him having once been able to make reliable estimates of the time, he doesn’t have the slightest clue what the specific hour is.

He sighs and stares up at the ceiling as he waits for Cyrus to come say hello to him. He considers changing out of his nightclothes, but his eyes are too unfocused to attempt that yet. Waking up has become an arduous process, his vision foggy and his depth perception off for far too long as he adjusts to reality. It seems nonsensical—every little thing has a chance of rousing him, but being functionally awake takes time and effort.

His body is already expending more than it’s getting; he’s not sure he can _afford_ to keep sleeping so little. The work he has to put into merely existing grows with each passing week, each passing _day_. He used to be so quick to wakefulness and to clarity, but now it takes him half an hour at best to feel awake at all. He hates it.

 _But sometimes this is what control looks like,_ he tells himself, and he believes it because he has no other choice. He wouldn’t be able to articulate how or why if asked, but it feels like he has all the control and determination he could ever need—all of it he was ever missing.

He has no intention of saying that, because he already knows nobody would believe him, but he quietly acknowledges it as truth.

Finally, he sits up, settles against the pillows behind him, and brings up one of his hands to circle it around his bicep. His middle finger and his thumb meet at the top near his shoulder and it comes with a rush of satisfaction. He wonders what it’d feel like to have Cyrus’s hands closed at the tops of his arms, skin warm and fingers much longer than they’d need to be to wrap around the circumference.

Therion’s hand drops to his lap when the bedroom door opens. There’s an expression on Cyrus’s face that Therion can’t quite decipher and it makes him uneasy.

“How was today?” Therion asks.

“Fine,” Cyrus says, sounding too preoccupied to be wholly present. He braces a hand against the wall so he doesn’t fall over as he pulls at the buckles of his shoes. They’re usually off by the time he gets to the bedroom, left near the front door, so this is peculiar. The scholar can be something of a scatterbrain at times, but he has a knack for sticking to his routines regardless.

“And how are _you_?”

“Fine.” He slips off his shoes, one after the other, and drops them haphazardly on the floor.

Therion rolls his eyes. “I meant actually.”

“I…” Cyrus looks slightly embarrassed at being caught in such a blatant lie. He clears his throat, anxiously shifting his weight. “Is it that obvious?”

“For some reason, it just feels _off_ for you to be giving a one-word answer to a question.”

Cyrus sucks his lower lip in between his teeth to chew at it nervously for a moment, piecing together what he wants to say next. “…My students said I seemed distracted today as well. Princess Mary always asks such excellent and thoughtful questions. Never did I think I’d see the day where it would be a curse to deal with.” He shakes his head, sighs, drops himself on the bed. “I apologize. Today was a stressful one, but I don’t want to worry you. I want to look after you, if I’m able.”

For a moment, Therion considers insisting that he’s fine. He feels okay, aside from the way his eyes are burning from tiredness and the typical just-woke-up nausea that’s become normal and the oppressive fog clouding his thoughts. But this is what _fine_ entails now. He’s okay.

He is _alive_ , after all, and sometimes that has to be good enough.

He circles one of his hands around the opposite wrist for the rush it gives him, hoping Cyrus doesn’t pay any mind.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” is what Therion decides on saying. It sounds equivalent to insisting he’s okay, but at least it isn’t so _brazen_ as that.

“Of course I’m going to worry, love.” Cyrus climbs entirely onto the bed to sit beside Therion. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice how ill you’ve been sooner. All those missed meals, how much weight you’ve lost… It shouldn’t have taken this long, and I apologize that it did.”

 _You didn’t notice because I’ve spent all my time hiding it from you,_ Therion wants to say. Instead, he says, “It’s not your fault.”

“I love you.” Cyrus pets Therion’s hair gently. Therion can see the scholar wants to hold him but that isn’t going to happen.

Therion wants to say it back, but his breathing stops when he tries. He settles on remaining silent as he relaxes into the touch the best he can.

“There’s something I need to mention… I should have told you first, but I thought it was too urgent. I wrote out a letter while my students were taking a test and asked one of my coworkers have it sent off. I know we could find an apothecary here, but I thought I’d reach out to Alfyn to see if he’s able to come, or at least send some medicine. I had the feeling you would find it easiest to entrust your health to him above anyone else.”

It feels like a betrayal. Therion goes tense and almost pulls away from Cyrus’s touch completely, but he can’t. Panic has always sent him into aggression, both physical and verbal. Cyrus hadn’t been an exception at first, but over time, he created an atmosphere that dissolved Therion’s threats and violent tendencies into something else entirely. Alfyn was the first person to finally dismantle Therion’s intrinsic _fight_ instinct after twenty-two years of it preserving his survival and Cyrus learned to benefit from that as well, and while he still went into _fight_ mode with the scholar from time to time, it wasn’t nearly as often as he did this.

This is terrifying. This is weak and it’s vulnerable. This makes him want to cry every time, though he never does. He’s always heard that panic activates a _fight-or-flight_ instinct, but this is neither one. He can’t fight back and he can’t run away—he’s just _frozen_.

“Therion, darling…” Cyrus begins carefully. The rest of the sentence doesn’t come.

“You didn’t have to.” He doesn’t add that he doesn’t want help.

This whole situation makes him angry and he wants more than anything to scream at Cyrus until it’s all out of his system.

He _isn’t_ crazy. He isn’t fucking crazy, but he _knows_ Cyrus would say otherwise.

“I’m afraid I have to disagree.” Cyrus presses a kiss to the other’s forehead.

Instead of becoming defensive the way he halfway expects himself to, Therion relaxes again. His nerves are still wound up, but this is safe. There’s danger in safety and it’s uncomfortable just how often Therion can forget that when he’s around Cyrus, but this feels _okay_.

Cyrus is taking one of his hands before Therion can register what’s going on. A pensive and concerned sound comes from the scholar, and Therion realizes too late the reason why.

The hand being inspected is splotched with purple-grey bruises and marred with small scabs and red marks that look like burns. He doesn’t know how he gets injured so easily or what he did to get injuries quite like this, but he hates himself for it.

“Looks worse than it is,” Therion chokes out. He swallows hard, trying to push down the lump in his throat, but he knows it’s far too late. His voice already came out strained and Cyrus is already worrying.

“Where did this _come_ from? How did I _miss_ this?”

Therion wants to know how _he_ missed it himself. The burns are mysterious little things he’s always aware of but _when the fuck_ had he bruised this bad?

Unless…

His meal after Cyrus had fallen asleep and before he headed out for his walk. The meal that could have accounted for two. The meal that he was careless with eating and went through hell bringing back up.

He’s learned to bite down on his knuckles to resist the instinct to pull away as soon as he gags—that way, he can keep his fingers at the back of his throat while trembles and convulses until he’s finally gagging hard enough to puke. It’s become a rare thing to need to do that, but choosing the wrong foods make it a necessity.

_Fucking idiot._

“This looks pretty bad,” Cyrus says.

Therion wants to punch him. He wants to kick and scream and _cry_ , but he doesn’t do any of those things.

“I wanna fuck,” he blurts out instead, because if it’s not meaningless aggression and it’s not alcohol and it’s not marking his skin with new injuries, then it’s sex. Fear and upset and anger have an odd effect on him. Sometimes they kick his libido into overdrive or sometimes they just make him crave sex to simultaneously objectify himself and to ignore his bad feelings. Both are things he’s been told are unhealthy, but they don’t _feel_ unhealthy and it’s not like he asked for a second opinion in the first place.

Cyrus hesitates a moment. He can see through when Therion says things like that for _allegedly_ unhealthy reasons. “I don’t… I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“I’m horny,” Therion persists. But he knows the answer he’s going to get either way, and he’s not sure he’s _actually_ horny to begin with.

“I’m sorry, darling.”

Therion thinks for a moment about how it’s a wonder that he hasn’t cheated on Cyrus yet. He could have by now. A bit of alcohol and he’s easy, pliant, willing to sleep with the first person who mentions that he’s handsome or has pretty eyes or _whatever_. It’s probably only a matter of time before something like that happens.

He’s told Cyrus that. Cyrus explained to him that a taken man being sexually assaulted doesn’t make him a cheater, and Therion was unsure of when or where sexual assault had come up at all but he dropped it to prevent the scholar from worrying more than necessary.

“I want to be left alone.”

Cyrus pauses again, uncertain, before he shifts away and removes his hand from Therion’s hair. The loss of the safe contact is nearly painful, but Therion doesn’t say he’s changed his mind. He doesn’t look at his partner either, because seeing the worried, hurt expression he already knows is there would be too much.

At heart, Therion is _selfish_. He has always been selfish, but he’s been getting worse about it lately. He’s never been good enough for Cyrus, and that’s been ringing true more and more clearly as the days pass.

Cyrus is going to leave him and he’s going to deserve it. He’s a dishonest piece of shit.

Even as Cyrus places his jacket over Therion’s shoulders, and even as he leaves his own bedroom in his own home, Therion feels like he’s finally being abandoned permanently. He wants to yell that he doesn’t fucking need Cyrus anyway, he wants to have a fit, he wants to say he’s going to kill himself if he’s left alone—but he doesn’t, because despite it all, he doesn’t think he could bring himself to do that to anyone even if he _genuinely_ wanted to. He knows what it feels like to have his head messed with in every possible way and he’s not about to do the same to the person he loves more than anything in the world.

The bedroom door shuts. Therion makes peace with the idea of never seeing Cyrus again as he pulls the jacket tightly around himself.

Numbness sets in. When he decides he doesn’t want to be sitting up anymore, he falls over onto his side. One hand keeps gripping at Cyrus’s jacket while the other moves down between his legs to find he’s already starting to get hard.

He palms at himself through his clothes until he’s fully hard. His body is more into it than his mind is, but he’ll get himself there eventually.

The cold of his hand around his cock when he finally gets to that point is jarring and makes him whine softly, but he quickly gets over the shock of it. He briefly wonders if lube or lotion or his own spit would be practical choices, but he dismisses the thought.

This isn’t supposed to be painless. He’s a masochist who can get off whether it feels good or not. He’s known that much about himself for at least decade by now.

It hurts in a way that isn’t pleasant, but it’s still masturbation and it’s still supposed to feel good and that’s enough. It doesn’t matter that it doesn’t feel like he’s enjoying it very much—he’s panting with the occasional little moan here and there, and those are the only tells he needs.

It feels good. He loves every second of it. He wouldn’t be hard otherwise. He wouldn’t be able to feel his orgasm building otherwise. He wouldn’t be bucking into his own hand despite the pain otherwise.

It’s while he’s tightly grasping the fabric of Cyrus’s jacket and breathing in Cyrus’s scent that he spills in his underwear, shuddering and gasping Darius’s name.

There is nothing in the world he wants more than to finally put himself out of his misery.

* * *

Hours later, Cyrus knocks on the bedroom door before he enters. Therion wants to tell him to go away. He still hasn’t changed his clothes or even gotten up, and the best he’s done is wipe the cum that got on his hand off on his sleep pants. _Gross._

“Yeah,” he mumbles.

The door opens slowly, and Cyrus enters with one bowl of soup in his hands, a second one precariously balancing between the crook of his arm and his side, and two oranges in the hand he presumably used to open the door. There are two glasses pressed to his chest with his forearm and it’s a wonder he hasn’t spilled anything.

“I thought I’d bring you something. I can leave if you still want to be alone, but I was hoping you’d at least try to eat something either way.”

The gesture makes Therion’s heart flutter regardless of how debauched and disgusting he feels otherwise. Kind, gentle Cyrus. Too sweet for his own good, really.

And as much as it makes a warm, loving feeling spread through his chest, there’s a part of Therion that despises this. It’s harder to say no to something offered with such care. He tells himself he doesn’t want any of it, just like he always does before each time he eats anything—but it isn’t doing anything for him now.

He sits up and nods wordlessly. He hopes he seems distant, but he knows himself better than that. He softens too much around Cyrus to have much chance at hiding fear or anxiety with reservation.

Cyrus closes the door behind him with his foot—something he always does, never forgetting that it makes Therion feel safer—and makes his way over to the bed.

“Here, let me help,” Therion mutters as he watches Cyrus try to figure out how to manage everything. He takes one of the bowls, one of the glasses, and both oranges.

Cyrus laughs quietly and Therion can’t help cracking a small smile in turn. “Thank you, I was afraid I was going to drop everything.”

“Dumbass,” Therion says playfully. He’s so scared he’s going to start an argument, but he can try to ignore that for now. He tells himself to hold his tongue and treat Cyrus as well as Cyrus treats him for once, but it doesn’t quell his worries.

He just wants _one_ meal with Cyrus where he doesn’t start an argument. He’s either been refusing to sit with Cyrus during the meals where they’re both home together or getting so worked up about the expectation of eating during them that he snaps. He needs this to go well, for his own sake.

More than that, for _Cyrus’s_ sake.

“That’s me,” Cyrus replies, his eyes alight with amusement. It shows in the way he holds himself and the way he looks at Therion that he’s optimistic, holding the belief that this meal will go over well, the way the others haven’t been.

Therion desperately hopes it’s not false promise. There’s nothing he’s kept down since midday yesterday and that was only a boiled egg and a piece of bread, so maybe he can keep himself together. He’s been eating less and throwing up more, so maybe, _maybe_ this will go well.

He starts picking at the peel of one of the oranges. If he was making a genuine effort, he would have reached for the dagger he keeps on his nightstand to puncture the flesh, but he’s not in a rush. Bits of it come off and push underneath his fingernail in a way that causes small flashes of pain that he pretends not to notice.

“Having trouble?” Cyrus says, tone light.

“I’m _stupid_ , Cyrus, be patient,” Therion replies, equally as lightly.

“The drink,” the scholar adds, changing the subject. “It might taste a bit odd. I infused it with a mix of herbs. It’s meant to help with nausea.”

Therion doesn’t mention how that’s the opposite of what he wants. He changes the subject again as he continues to pick away at the orange peel. “Could you ever see us getting pets together?”

“I suppose it depends… You’re really committed to staying here, aren’t you?”

“Nowhere else I’d rather be.” He finally breaks all the way through, and he winces at the small squirt of juice that ends up under the same fingernail that’s collected compressed orange rind beneath it. “Does it depend on anything else?”

“What kinds of pets would you _want_?”

Therion grins. “Tarantulas. Scorpions, maybe.”

“Those are _quite_ the choices.”

The thief laughs, continuing to work at unpeeling the fruit. “The scorpion thing was a joke, probably. Tarantulas, though—they make good pets. Getting bitten wouldn’t be fun, but full disclosure, I’m filing for divorce if you manage to be mean enough to make one bite you.”

“We aren’t even _married_ yet.”

“I’d marry you just hit you with the divorce papers, then.”

Cyrus has a smile that suggests he’s about to crack into laughter at any moment, but Therion is about at that point too. “Over a _spider_?”

“Abso-fucking-lutely.” He pulls the orange in half and tears off one of the wedges. “Don’t test me, Albright.”

The scholar quirks an eyebrow. “Or what?”

“Better pray you never have to find out.”

That’s where Cyrus cracks, nearly choking on his drink as he bursts out laughing. “Well, I certainly _hope_ I won’t.”

Therion covers his mouth as he starts laughing as well. He’s never been one to laugh loudly, but that’s compensated for by how it makes his whole body shake if it’s strong enough.

It’s strong enough now, helping to instill a sense of normalcy that he prays isn’t as fragile as it seems.

He pops the orange wedge he’s holding into his mouth. There’s a disconcerting sense that all his time adamantly denying himself food and vomiting so often is making it _more_ difficult to manage eating without the awful sense of dread and failure beginning to stir. It’s _not_ supposed to do that—the cycle of starving between his episodes of overeating then puking it all is supposed to make moments like this easier, more bearable. How the fuck is it making this _harder_?

He wants to eat everything Cyrus brought him, but he also doesn’t want to touch anything more than the oranges. His control is cracking, threatening to begin falling away, but he can’t have that. He can hardly stand the thought of it. He does what he can to dismiss it—he can banish the thought just for tonight, or at least tell himself he can, because this is far too nice of a time to ruin with his stupid, pointless neuroticism.

Things will be just fine, if only just for tonight.

* * *

And they are, because Therion makes it through dinner—well, Cyrus finishes his portion while Therion eats the two oranges and a few bites of soup—without an outburst. His stress levels are high with the typical disquiet that food consumption causes and he’s unreasonably wound up about it, but he holds himself together.

Holds himself together well enough, in fact, to have pulled himself into Cyrus’s lap shortly afterward. He’s even managing focus, for the most part, on something other than the way his partner’s hands grab his hips and occasionally touch elsewhere. The insecurity gnaws at him when Cyrus’s touch wanders _too_ much, but he’s been trying too hard this evening to reestablish a sense of stability between them to let himself worry about it. He can have his breakdown later—this isn’t the time for it.

“So fucking eager,” Therion teases when he breaks the kiss. He’s not exactly one to talk, always prepared to submit whenever Cyrus decides he wants to be more dominant, but teasing is _fun_.

“For you,” Cyrus mumbles, and one of his hands goes up to the back of Therion’s head to make it easier to kiss him again.

This time, it feels good— _actually_ good. Even something this simple has nothing on how it feels to jerk off or fuck when it’s about ignoring bad feelings or hurting himself or mentally setting himself back to some point in the past.

This is loving and pure.

When Therion breaks the kiss again, his mouth moves down to Cyrus’s neck. He sucks gently, earning a contented sigh. Bites down, and gets a louder sound in turn.

 _“Therion,”_ Cyrus breathes. Nothing else follows, like his train of thought crashed after saying his partner’s name.

Hearing his name spoken like that is all the encouragement Therion needs to start tugging Cyrus’s pants open.

“Want you so bad,” he murmurs, and then his hands travel up the scholar’s shirt to push at his chest, urging him to lie back.

Cyrus obeys without question. _“Please.”_

Deft hands work at yanking Cyrus’s pants off. “Gods, you’re always so eager.” Sometimes Therion calls the scholar his whore, his slut, his fuckdoll, but tonight hardly seems the time, though he knows it’d get positive results all the same. Instead: “And you’re _such_ a good boy.”

That has Cyrus arching his back and moaning.

Therion’s fingers wrap around Cyrus’s cock, hard and leaking, and he uses his thumb to smear the precum against the tip. “Oh, you _are_ a good boy.”

The scholar’s body is shaking somewhat, a visible display of the effort going into staying still. He needs this _so badly_ but he knows how to be good, and a shock of arousal at that observation hits Therion with enough sudden force that it pries a low groan from his throat.

“Fuck, Cy,” he says, “you _really_ are.”

“Yours,” Cyrus replies. “Yours, _please_.”

Therion knows what’s being asked of him. He takes a second to spit into his hand to so he can start jerking Cyrus off, though the precum would have been enough on its own had he been more patient, and says, “Yeah, _my_ good boy.”

To his credit, Cyrus doesn’t try to push up into the touch at all. The last shreds of his self-control are cracking, though, and it shows in the way he bites at his lip and grips the sheets.

“So beautiful,” Therion murmurs, giving a few more slow strokes.

When he removes his hand, Cyrus whimpers but doesn’t protest. Therion reaches to retrieve the bottle of lubricant in his nightstand drawer and ignores the frustrated whine from Cyrus that follows.

“Therion,” Cyrus complains.

“Since when are _you_ the impatient one?” Therion chastises. He hooks a thumb under his waistband and there’s an odd fear that makes his chest constrict, and he hesitates. He wants this so bad, but he ate so recently and it’s making him unbelievably self-conscious.

Why is he getting so worked up about something like that, anyway?

With a steadying breath, he pushes down his pants and kicks them aside. He’s not sure how comfortable this feels, but he does everything he can to ignore any second thoughts.

He wants this. There’s no question. He doesn’t even have to work to convince himself that this is what he wants. Cyrus is the first person he’s ever had sex with who never needs to talk him into things and who he never has to talk himself into wanting to fuck.

This is safe. This is safe, and as always, he wants it. There’s no reason for it to be difficult.

Another steadying breath and he coats three of his fingers. He pushes them into himself all at once, hissing through his teeth until the sound dissolves into a groan. It’s not difficult to open himself up, something he’s known how to do with flawless efficiency since before he met Cyrus.

“You’re so pretty like that,” Therion grits out. “You need me so bad, don’t you?”

Cyrus looses a heavy breath that’s edged with moan as his cock jerks in response to nothing but Therion’s words.

“Yeah,” Therion goes on, “I know. So _perfect_ , spread out just for me. So disciplined, and only _I_ get to see you like this.”

Once he deems himself ready enough, the thief straddles his partner’s hips and sinks down onto his cock. Where Therion bites his lip and exhales a heavy, whimpery breath, Cyrus moans before he has any chance of stifling himself and the sound goes directly to Therion’s dick.

The pace Therion sets isn’t slow or careful, but it’s not exactly rough either. His hands wander back to where they were under Cyrus’s shirt, pressed against his chest with easy access to the other’s nipples.

Clumsy fingers wrap around Therion’s cock and his rhythm falters for a moment.

“Fuck, _Cyrus,_ ” he halfway moans, because the sex hasn’t felt quite this good for him in the past few weeks.

“Missed this,” Cyrus manages to say. “You so—so willing to let me t-touch— _Ah_ , I, _ah,_ I really do adore you. Embarrassing it’s—working me up this m-much— _ah, please_ —a-already…”

Therion’s nails press against Cyrus’s chest. As much as he loves being degraded and humiliated, there’s nothing that gets to him quite like the sweeter things Cyrus says. They ring true no matter the context and that’s the part that gets Therion off— _knowing_ that any romantic, affectionate sentiments aren’t just the scholar’s libido.

“Sap,” Therion mutters, but it’s an endearment.

“M-maybe— _ah_ …” Cyrus’s hand works quicker, a tell that he’s getting close. Hardly took anything at all, but Therion wouldn’t be one to point that out. “You’re so—so beautiful, Therion. E-everything I could—could have— _ah, fuck, please_ —everything I could ever want. Even more than— G-gods, I—I love you s-so much, _oh, that, oh gods_ — Fuck, I love—I love everything you are, everything you’ll e-ever _be_ — _Ah! Th-Therion!_ ”

One hand twisted in the bedsheets and the other pumping Therion erratically, Cyrus _wails_ his partner’s name as he finishes. His discipline shatters and he bucks his hips through his orgasm.

Ultimately, it’s not the skilled fingers on his dick or the way Cyrus is writhing beneath him that pushes Therion over the edge—it's the expression of unconditional admiration that Cyrus stares up at him with. It makes Therion feel like he’s at the very center of Cyrus’s world and lasting any longer isn’t possible.

He shudders violently, whines low in his throat, moans out Cyrus’s name as he’s tipped over the edge. Most of his cum ends up on Cyrus’s hand and shirt, but some ends up on the scholar’s face, and _holy shit_ , he must have really needed that.

Cyrus licks his fingers clean, swipes up the cum that got on his face, and laps up that mess as well. Therion _knows_ it doesn’t taste good—of course it doesn’t, it’s tolerable only in the heat of the moment—but the willingness with which Cyrus swallows when he has the choice not to is _hot_.

“How are you feeling?” Cyrus asks as he reaches up to run his fingers through Therion’s hair.

“Good,” Therion breathes, shaky. “I love you.”

“You can rest while I clean up.”

“No, I can help.”

Cyrus looks at him, the care and adoration not faltering a bit, and it makes Therion feel safe and warm and happy. “You need the rest, darling. I promise it won’t be an issue for me.”

Therion hesitates a moment. He has to earn things like this. He has to earn affectionate sex, loving words, soft touches, everything sweet and pure about this relationship.

Except no, he doesn’t. _He doesn’t_. He’s always afraid he does, but believing that while trusting Cyrus requires a lot of cognitive dissonance and it’s making his head foggy with confusion. It’s not a transaction, but what if it is.

 _But what if it’s not?_ It hasn’t seemed like one thus far. He doesn’t know why he always expects it to be one.

“I love you,” Therion repeats as he rolls off Cyrus and onto his own side of the bed. “I’m so tired…”

“I’ll be back to give you cuddles in just a few minutes.”

“Mmmm...”

* * *

Therion drifts off more easily than he has in weeks when Cyrus comes back and settles into bed and pulls him close. He wakes up countless time and his sleep is still less restful than it should be, but he doesn’t dream and he doesn’t feel like he spent the whole night awake when he’s finally up the following day.

Unsweetened tea for breakfast, an unreasonably big lunch that he pukes afterward, and a bit of the dinner Cyrus makes for the two of them.

It’s the second evening in a row without an argument, and he wonders if it’s something that can properly last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> compatibility test question #1: what's your opinion of spiders?
> 
> cyrus is probably one of those people who doesn't really want to hurt bugs at all and even likes them (at a distance), but is just scared of most types of bugs even if they're harmless. he would see a luna moth and freak out and therion would have to explain (again) that they don't even have mouths so all they care about is fucking before they die. ("the larvae even puke as a defense mechanism, kinda like human babies. aren't you a teacher?" ".....i teach history and anthropology. to teenagers." "your point?")  
> meanwhile, therion is the sort of person who just really loves bugs. definitely the one who deals with bugs in the house, but by putting them outside.   
> 
> 
> fun med fact: malnutrition does indeed make sleeping less restful and more difficult! you need nourishment to sleep properly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **warnings: flashbacks, a vague allusion to csa, masturbation as a terrible/harmful coping mechanism, really unhealthy thoughts/perceptions of sex, mentions of past sexual assault, internalized victim blaming, mentions of past physical & emotional abuse, self harm, vague suicidal ideation, a lot of unhealthy/toxic thoughts*, therion generally just being really unfair toward alfyn + cyrus**  
> * therion thinks about guilt tripping for a second. he's also an extremely unreliable narrator as far as his perception of others' emotions go (particularly in that he reads anger in places where it absolutely Is Not).
> 
> i get so excited over med stuff so everything below this point is my observations regarding the medical understanding of orsterra. the tldr is, i had a lot of fun with it. there's an optional explanation of everything medical in this chapter in the end notes.
> 
> the most solid things we really know about orsterra's medical knowledge is that it has a LONG way to go and is still not very far along in development, & the only things that can Definitely In Canon be treated through medicine are external injuries, at least certain poisons + venoms, fevers, and at least some respiratory issues. medical diagnoses DO exist as there are at least two of them that are spoken out loud and are understood by others with no cultural barrier, but how they were decided on + first dx'd is a mystery. we also know alfyn is good enough at the craft to be an apothecary, but is still quite inexperienced in the field his methods of making medicine are as of yet unrefined, which is also important to take into account here. anyway i used all of that to establish an extremely expansive collection of hcs for medical understandings + practices in orsterra. i'm writing a massive fucking essay on it and no one is ever going to read it because i can't imagine there's a large overlap between octopath players and people who just really love med science.

Several days pass. Therion settles into a routine with his food, and he has no idea how he didn’t have the clarity to sort this out sooner. His impulse control is often poor despite his bouts of impenetrable patience, so he decides to blame it on that.

He has breakfast whenever he wakes up, always something so insubstantial that it could hardly count as a snack, never mind a meal. Lunch follows in the next hours, where he eats an _absurd_ amount of food only to spend the next fifteen to thirty minutes with his fingers down his throat. Dinner is whatever Cyrus brings him, but never more than fifteen bites that he chews no fewer than twenty times. He decides that late-night meals after Cyrus has gone to sleep are fine going forward so long as he vomits until his head hurts and his abdominal muscles—whatever may be left of them—are too sore to allow him to stand upright.

It’s a perfect routine. It curbs his constant cravings for food far better than the disorganized, jumbled cycle of starving, overeating, puking that he was trying to stick to before. The soreness of his abdomen never stops, but that’s a consequence he welcomes unquestioningly.

He’s found something that _works_. Now it’s only a matter of keeping Cyrus from ever figuring out, and as much as it turns his stomach to be so set on dishonesty, he’s certain this is better than coming clean. He doesn’t want to change this, and he doesn’t want Cyrus to worry over something that isn’t a problem.

The only issue is what he’s meant to do on the inevitable days to come when he’s able to have lunch with Cyrus. The scholar spends a lot of time at the academy or at the library, including days he’s _meant_ to have off but still feels like working anyway, but Therion knows the issue will come up sooner or later.

* * *

There’s a knock at the door one night as Cyrus is sitting on the sofa looking over essays that need graded while Therion lays across his lap. Dinner is on the stove beside the teakettle as it finishes cooking, and how Cyrus remembers when he needs to get up to check on it beyond what Therion can understand.

“Delivery?” Therion asks, not moving at all. “But I guess it’s little late for that.”

“A guest,” Cyrus replies, suddenly seeming vaguely uneasy.

“Student?”

“I need to get up, darling.”

Therion wants to stay put as a feeble act of rebellion. The lack of an answer is itself an answer, and it makes anxiety begin stirring in the thief’s chest and stomach.

He sits up without another word and pulls into himself, halfway curled into a ball on the sofa as Cyrus gets to his feet and sets the stack of his students’ papers on the coffee table. Therion wants to go back to the bedroom before his partner answers the door, but that’s not possible.

He’s not able to move in the first place, he realizes with a pang of horror. _Shit._

The door opens and there’s Alfyn, wearing a smile that’s clearly off from any of his usual carefree ones. He’s worried about whatever is going on, and if his uncharacteristic expression doesn’t suggest that, the amount of luggage he has with him does. He’s nothing but solid, sturdy muscle, but everything he’s brought must have gotten heavy during the trip.

Therion wonders how much lighter he is than the sum of all the luggage. He just _knows_ it weighs more than him, but how _much_ more is the question he wants an answer to.

What started as the beginnings of anxiety becomes worse all at once and Therion can feel it in the back of his throat. Fuck this.

“Come in,” Cyrus says, stepping aside. “Do you need help with anything?”

“Nah, I can manage,” Alfyn says, hauling everything inside and setting it beside the doorway. He’s more careful with one of the bags than the other two, leading to the question of what it contains.

Therion feels ill. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Alfyn offers the thief a small wave as he approaches him. “Nice to see you again, even if the circumstances could be better.” He sounds as cheerful as he can with his voice underpinned with perturbation. He sits down on the sofa beside Therion. “Cyrus says you’ve got somethin’ of a sickness going on here? Do ya mind— Well, I guess I should ask if here’s the place you wanna get into it.”

Therion, against his better judgement, pulls into himself further. At a time when he’d rather seem threatening and act with hostility, he’s making himself appear smaller, more vulnerable. He’s afraid but he’s not sure of what—the only thing he’s sure of is that now is not a time to be showing weakness, but it’s already too late.

“You can take him to our bedroom,” Cyrus offers, motioning to the hallway. There’s a dispirited apology written on his face that remains unspoken. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll bring you dinner when it’s finished.”

“Sounds good.” Alfyn stands up. Therion doesn’t. “C’mon, let’s get you checked out. I promise it’s nothing scary.”

Therion does not move. He wants to shut down and ignore everything happening around him.

“This might help,” Cyrus suggests. He removes his jacket and hands it to Alfyn, who accepts the article of clothing but looks unsure of why it’s being given to him. “Keep him feeling comfortable and safe, please.”

 _Fuck you,_ Therion thinks. As he often does, he wants to scream. He wants to ask why Cyrus is so willing to make him look even weaker. He wants to brandish the closest thing he can use as a makeshift weapon and force Alfyn to leave. He wants to say he’s going to kill himself and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop him.

He stays silent and motionless.

“I can carry ya,” Alfyn says. It’s a warning, not an offer, and Therion realizes this too late. Alfyn lifts him up and holds him as comfortably as he can before making his way to the bedroom.

Therion wants to say he can walk. He feels pathetic, useless—it chokes him up in a way he hopes he can swallow back before Alfyn notices.

The thief is set down gently on the bed and Cyrus’s jacket is draped over him before he can move to readjust his position. He pulls it tight around himself instinctively, immediately cursing the display of weakness. It’s hard enough to be worn down to the point of letting Cyrus see him so weak, so _pathetic_. This feels so much worse. Even if Alfyn has seen him come apart—hell, even if _most_ of his traveling companions have, to some extent—that doesn’t make this any better.

Cyrus is supposed to be the only one. If he gets too comfortable around anyone else, his dignity will be shredded to ribbons and he won’t have anyone left. He knows Alfyn has seen him break down before, but it can’t be something that happens without a damn good reason, and he certainly doesn’t have one of those right now. Everyone is going to leave him if he lets his guard down too much too often, and he’s going to deserve it for being so spineless.

It hurts.

What’s been building up? What horrible things has he been swallowing down to land him _here_?

“Hey.” Alfyn reaches out to touch him, but stops himself and pulls back. He sits on the bed a respectable distance away and Therion swallows the urge to beg for closeness. “You’re really strong for going through whatever this is on your own so long.”

Therion only _has_ himself, but he doesn’t say that.

“Really!” Alfyn persists, picking up on Therion’s hesitation. “And I respect that, y’know? Ain’t exactly healthy to be keeping all this to yourself, but I think it takes a lotta strength to be able to keep yourself together this long. But y’know you’ve got friends, right? And Cyrus, he loves you more than anything. Shows in how he looks at you, has for longer than you’ve even been together. Nothing to be ashamed of, if ya need hand sometimes.”

Therion doesn’t know what to say. He hugs the jacket tighter, wishing he knew how to _say_ he wanted to be held, wishing he knew how to keep from pulling away when gentle touches made him feel too vulnerable.

“Cyrus sounded real worried in the letter he sent me. And I have to agree, you don’t look too good. Can I take a closer look? Just for a sec?”

“Fuck you,” Therion mumbles.

“Hey, that’s okay, too! I showed up outta nowhere, so if you need some time before you’re ready, I can wait.”

Therion’s cheeks burn with shame as his eyes start to sting. He hides in the jacket, pressing his face against the fabric and trying to pull himself together by inhaling Cyrus’s scent.

It doesn’t work. It relaxes him, but not into composure—into a sense of _safety_ , but that safety dissipates into something else as he reminds himself that there’s nothing safe about it.

He feels so small. He feels like he’s ten again, with no one to rely on but himself and crying himself to sleep every night in filth only to wake up the next morning with a dehydrated headache pressing at his temples. He also feels like he’s twelve again, right after he escaped the cold concrete cell with the only friend he’d ever known and completely in the dark to the betrayal that the coming years would hold.

They’re such specific feelings and they’re crushing him, taking his heart and compressing it with more pressure than he can stand. He is drowning and _alone_ as defining moments of his childhood choke him.

No one is going to stay. He doesn’t deserve them to. And now Alfyn is angry because he can’t just fucking _cooperate_ , and—

The next thought doesn’t come, and Alfyn certainly doesn’t _seem_ angry as he wraps his arms around Therion and hauls him onto his lap.

Therion realizes he’s crying when he feels something wet on his hand. He rubs at his eyes and inhales sharply, the effort of it auditory, at the humiliation suddenly threatening to strangle him.

He wants to salvage whatever he can of his pride. He knows he can tell Alfyn to stop touching him, to leave the room entirely, and that demand would be respected. He could muster whatever fight he has left and lash out, leave Alfyn with a bloody nose or a split lip, and he’d be _restrained_ for it but still met with some level of kindness and an attempt at understanding.

He chooses, with an overwhelming sense of self-loathing, to melt into the touch. He sobs and buries his face again in the jacket around his shoulders. His body is trembling uncontrollably, not unlike a stray puppy left out in the rain, and it’s pathetic. The mortification of it all could kill him, and he wishes it would.

“Sorry,” he chokes out before he realizes what he’s saying.

“Shh.” Alfyn rests his chin on top of Therion’s head. “Shh, it’s okay. Nothing wrong with feeling things sometimes.”

There’s something very safe about Alfyn holding him like this. He wishes Cyrus would hold him like this more often, or rather wishes he’d _let_ Cyrus hold him like this more often. He knows Cyrus wants to—probably more than anything else in the world or somewhere close to that, if Therion is allowing for a moment to be honest with himself.

“Sorry,” Therion repeats, hardly a whisper.

Alfyn squeezes him gently. “Nothing to be sorry for.”

Therion wants to ask Alfyn what he’d rather be doing right now, but he knows better. He isn’t sure he wants an answer, and he doesn’t know if he’d trust whatever answer he got in the first place.

* * *

Sometime later, there’s a knock at the bedroom door before it opens. Therion has no idea how much time has passed.

“Is there anything either of you need?” Cyrus asks. His voice in unsteady and cracks slightly on the final word.

“Water, I’d reckon,” Alfyn says.

“One minute.”

Therion wants to say no, absolutely not, he doesn’t need any water if it’ll save him from having to be seen by Cyrus like this more than strictly necessary. It’s a quite counterproductive desire from the man who spends all his time wanting to be held the way he is right now, he knows that, but it’s a complicated mess he couldn’t explain if he tried.

He doesn’t look up the second time Cyrus comes back in. Alfyn takes the water and dismisses Cyrus with a hushed voice.

“Try to have some?” Alfyn suggests.

Therion lifts his head and sniffles, and takes the glass with two unsteady hands. He still feels like the helpless child he used to be, back when he had to pretend he was strong and capable when he really wasn’t, but he’s slowly coming back to himself and gradually returning entirely to the present moment. The water feels nice in his mouth as he takes a drink.

“Feel any better?”

“Yeah,” Therion says softly. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

“Can I check some things out now?”

Therion doesn’t like how pliant he suddenly. He nods in agreement, then takes another sip of water. He sets the glass aside and tries to swallow his rising panic.

“I’m gonna start with that hand of yours there,” Alfyn says. “Looks pretty bad.”

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” Therion replies automatically.

The apothecary doesn’t reply—any response would probably be a disagreement anyway—as he takes Therion’s hand. His expression is one of mild confusion, as though he’s trying to solve a puzzle. The dark, nasty bruises that had concerned Cyrus days prior haven’t healed much and the burns are still present. The scabbing is mostly gone, but in their wake are ashy little flecks of scar tissue.

“How’d this _happen_?” Alfyn asks, perplexed.

“Not sure,” Therion lies. He hates how naturally the mistruth comes to him.

“I need you to be honest, please, Theri. This ain’t an accident.”

Therion did his best to swallow the nausea that’s rapidly rising in his throat. “What do you _mean_ it’s not? I do thoughtless shit all the time.”

“These.” Alfyn uses his index finger to make an abstract motion over all the little burns, which are the only part of what’s going on with Therion’s hands that even he’s confused by. “Burns. They look like the sort you’d get from a chemical or acid.”

Oh, _shit_. His stomach acid. How strong _is_ stomach acid, anyway? He never considered it could do this sort of damage.

Therion almost expects to be asked again for an honest answer, but that doesn’t happen. Instead, the apothecary taps his jaw. “Open up, lemme see your mouth.”

He’s fucked.

He does what he’s told anyway.

Alfyn applies light force to Therion’s forehead to prompt the thief to tilt his head back somewhat so he can more easily inspect the inside of his mouth.

“I’m gonna use my fingers for this.” It’s a warning with a note of apology to it, but it makes a strange feeling wash through Therion’s body.

He wants to ignore that strange feeling because he already knows what the outcome of it will be, but he knows he won’t be able to. As much as he wants to, he doesn’t object as Alfyn gingerly pushes his mouth open a little wider. He considers pulling away, even if that means falling off the bed in the process. He also considers biting down hard enough to draw blood.

Neither of those things happen. He stays still and tries to keep his breathing normal as he feels Alfyn inspecting his mouth. It’s odd to have someone else’s fingers in his mouth for any other reason than to have him suck on them. _Bemusing_ , in fact—not because he’s never let anyone check up on his health like this before (which he hasn’t), but because he’s more useful when he’s sucking off someone’s fingers than he is when others are caring about his wellbeing.

He wonders what would happen if he closed his mouth and sucked instead. But Alfyn is already intent on helping, and Therion isn’t sure someone his own age would be interested in taking bait like that in a situation like this at all.

Gods, this is doing things to him, though—and it certainly _doesn’t_ help that he already knows what it feels like to have Alfyn on his dick. He wants Alfyn to hold him down and shove his fingers in until he gags. He wants Alfyn to tell him to suck like the filthy little whore he is. He wants to be forced into helpless compliance. He wants his only options to be submitting completely or receiving a cruel punishment.

Therion prays to whatever god might be willing to care that his growing erection goes unnoticed.

When Alfyn presses against his gums, there’s a sting of pain and Therion whines.

“Ah, ’m sorry,” and the apothecary pulls his hand back. “Think I’ve figured out all I need to, though, ’least for now.”

The apology is unnecessary. Therion is fairly sure the sound he made was from his own arousal suddenly spiking at the pain, which means _he_ should be the one apologizing. Right now, he isn’t sure if he would be able to tell the difference between getting the best fuck of his life and being beaten into a bruised and bloody wreck—the two scenarios currently seem indistinguishable.

Why did it end up like this, anyway? And _how_ did it?

“I need you to get out,” Therion mutters.

“You okay?”

“Just fine. Get out.”

“ ’s there anything you need?”

“No, just _get the fuck out_.”

Alfyn almost ruffles Therion’s hair but holds back. He leaves without another word, but it shows on his face that he _wants_ to say something.

Therion lets out a heavy sigh when the door shuts. The thought arises that this _isn’t_ the feeling that comes with having sex with Cyrus or with their flirtatious banter or with thoughts about him that escalate into sexual territory. But this is the feeling he’s always understood to be arousal, because _of course_ it is. What else would it be? He knows the average person can’t conflate getting fucked with getting a brutal ass-kicking, but masochism isn’t too uncommon a thing and Therion just takes it to the extreme because he’s a _‘go big or go home’_ sort of person.

The more time he spends close to Cyrus, the more it seems to fry his brain. He knows what being horny is—it’s _this_. Whatever he has going on when it’s about _Cyrus_ is colored with emotion. It’s stupid to be overthinking this.

He pushes down his pants but doesn’t take them off, and wraps his hand around his cock. He’s hard and leaking, and it’s hard to stifle a groan when he presses his thumb against the slit.

Nothing about this feels _right_ , exactly. It’s probably some shade of immoral to be jerking himself off in the bed he shares with the love of his life while thinking about his _excessively kind and well-meaning_ friend holding him down and choking him without regard for his wellbeing. Sure, he’s had Alfyn ride him before, but that was before the whole relationship thing and the apothecary had been so _sweet_ about it the whole time.

Alfyn could snap his neck if he wanted to. That sends more heat through Therion and he bucks into his own touch.

It’s painful, like it usually is when he’s alleviating this sort of arousal. He doesn’t bother with anything to make it easier unless there’s enough precum to take the edge off the discomfort. He’s been doing this for over half his life now and he can’t even figure out if he genuinely _likes_ it. He assumes he must, or he wouldn’t be reacting so well, grinding into his own hand and panting and unable to focus on anything but chasing release.

He’s never been a fan of sex feeling good before Cyrus anyway.

Why the fuck does it matter so much in the first place? Why have his thoughts start flickering to this subject _every damn time_ he just wants to get off?

Sex doesn’t _have_ to feel nice. He doesn’t know when or why he started having his vague little doubts about that. As long as his body is reacting, none of this has to _feel_ nice. It just _is_ because it’s supposed to be. It still sends heat and need through his bloodstream, and if that’s not what sexual _want_ is, he’s not sure what else could be.

One hand pushes under his shirt, feeling over his left side and automatically finding the raised scar there. It’s a stab wound from Darius, one he received when being fucked in an alleyway so hard he could barely breathe. He hadn’t been able to tell the difference between how it felt to be fucked so hard he was forced to bite bruises into his wrist just to stifle himself and how it felt to be knifed in the side and left to bleed freely until things were over.

He _misses_ that. He misses that sort of heat and passion and lust, but he knows it’s not something he’ll ever get from Cyrus.

Maybe he should break up with Cyrus. It’s only a matter of time before he gets sick of making responsible choices and ends up too wasted to have the self-control not to seek out that sort of thrill again. It’s only a matter of time before he’s too wasted to even _think_ of Cyrus before he’s begging to be stabbed while being fucked by a stranger he’s never going to see again.

He just wants that rush back, that willingness in someone else to indulge how _insanely_ masochistic he is.

He presses against the raised scar hard enough to risk a bruise. It feels wrong to still have Cyrus’s jacket over him while he does this, but he doesn’t feel like stopping to toss it aside. He’s a bad person anyway—he may as well be unabashed in living up to that.

Nothing about this feels right, but it also feels as though this is exactly how things are meant to be.

What would it feel like to have Alfyn pulling his hair and shoving him around like a living sex toy? What would that feel like if he wasn’t holding back any of his strength?

Therion doesn’t know _exactly_ who or what he’s thinking when he cums, but it’s got nothing to do with Cyrus.

* * *

Dinner is eaten in the main room of the house. Therion isn’t paying attention the conversation, more concerned with figuring out how to eat as little as possible without raising too much suspicion. His attention hardly leaves his food at all.

Small bites. Cut things up even when it’s unnecessary. Chew excessively.

It feels clever enough because it’s not something he’s worried about getting caught doing unless his actions are being intentionally observed. Alfyn and Cyrus seem too preoccupied with idle chatter that they often try—and continuously fail—to include Therion in to be paying much attention to his eating habits.

He doesn’t know what he’d do if he was being watched as he ate. He’s uncomfortable enough eating in front of _anyone_ , Cyrus included, and it’d be the straw to break the camel’s back. It’s already beyond unpleasant to be having dinner with both the man he’s dating and shares a bed with _and_ the man who he thought about fucking in the aforementioned bed not much earlier.

Part of him doesn’t even want to share the bed with Cyrus tonight.

* * *

Therion excuses himself as soon as he feels he can get away with it.

“Are you feeling unwell?” Cyrus asks, sympathetic.

“Like I usually am after I eat.” Therion winces, and he isn’t sure if it’s feigned or not. “Stomach hurts. I want to lie down.”

“I still have a bit of work to get done, so I’ll come join you when I can.”

Therion doesn’t reply as he turns and heads off. He just wants to be alone.

He hears his name a few moments after the bedroom door shuts. He’s always had excellent hearing, which is a fortunate skill for someone who enjoys eavesdropping as much as he does. It’s also fortunate that no one seems to realize just _how good_ his hearing is. He sits with his back pressed to the bedroom door, careful not to make any noise as he eases his weight against it.

“Y’know, I don’t think it’s got anything to with _actually_ being sick,” Alfyn says. His voice is hushed, presumably as a precaution, but not hushed enough. “ ’Least not in a way you’d usually use that word.”

There’s a pause before Cyrus speaks. “I don’t think I follow. He’s quite ill. Even his ribs are showing, and he’s gotten paler than I thought someone of his complexion _could_ get. He isn’t eating and he can’t keep down anything more than a few bites.”

“Yeah, an’ I know that. He’s _sick_ , all right, but I don’t think it’s got anything to do with feelin’ sick to his stomach like he says. Those marks on his hand, you’ve seen ’em, yeah?”

“The bruises?”

“Those little burn-looking marks.”

Therion can _picture_ the look of contemplation that must be on Cyrus’s face as he tries to solve the mystery himself. He probably would have had fit all the pieces together already if it wasn’t a medical matter. “…What about them?”

“Those are acid burns. Like from stomach acid.” A pause, then Alfyn continues speaking. “Stomach acid’s one of the most powerful ones humanity’s discovered so far. Kinda impressive, but that also means it can burn your skin. Leave holes, if there’s too much exposure.”

“Apologies, but I’m… I’m not certain I’m following.”

“Reminds me of a case I saw back home. I reckon he’s making himself sick. He, uh, he didn’t admit to it, but he seemed kinda shaken that I knew what was up with them.”

“To what _end_?”

There’s another space of silence before Alfyn answers. “I don’t think I can really say _what_ , exactly. See, it was really confusing to me, but it’s like… dunno exactly how to make you _get_ it, but control?”

“Control? _Where?_ Controlling how quickly his body _shuts_ _down_ , I suppose.” Cyrus sounds angry, and even shut inside the bedroom, Therion flinches like he’s been hit.

“Hey, hey, easy now, Cy. There’s a lotta stuff in the world you can’t control, and when you’re hurting like he always seems to be, don’t you think there’d be something good in it? Life’s kicked your ass more times than you could ever hope to count, you’ve spent all your years learning about just how unfair and uncontrollable things can be—don't you think you’d wanna find _something_ that makes ya feel you’ve got your shit together? Even if it doesn’t?”

Therion wants to storm out and shout at them. He wants to pop Alfyn in the jaw, ask him how the _fuck_ he figured out how to articulate all of that before Therion even knew how to begin explaining _any_ aspect of his weird—to put it mildly—food habits.

“I…” Cyrus’s voice trails off, but the single syllable is all it takes to tell it’s softened again. “That does, in a way, make perfect sense. I’m not sure how you want me to proceed, however… He hasn’t precisely been _cooperative_ about it.”

That’s about all Therion can handle. He throws the bedroom door open so hard that it slams against the wall and storms out into the main room.

“You’re _allowed_ to fucking talk to me,” he snarls. “I can _hear_ you and everything. You’re out here talking behind my fucking back. You’re so godsdamned concerned for me but you’re not even coming to me? _Really?_ You don’t _trust_ me? You don’t think I’m old enough to handle this? What, am I kid to you? And Cyrus is my concerned legal guardian, I guess?” He shoots a glare at Alfyn specifically. “Playing doctor, complete with going to _my partner_ instead of me, which is _impressively_ audacious for someone _younger_ than me—”

“That’s _quite_ enough of that, Therion,” Cyrus snaps. He doesn’t raise his voice and keeps it perfectly controlled, but delivery says everything Therion needs to know. It’s the _‘don’t talk back unless you have a damn good explanation for yourself’_ tone, and he certainly doesn’t have one.

But gods, Therion _really_ wants to talk back. It’s not like Cyrus is being unfair, but the thief wants to argue regardless. He always wants to argue, because even when he’s losing, he’s forced into defensive mode. He’s spent his whole life defaulting to a combative sort of defense, and so far, Cyrus’s no-nonsense, shut-the-hell-up tone of voice is the only thing that’s ever been able to instantly shut that down.

“Nah,” Alfyn reassures, gentle and soft-hearted as always, “it’s fine, really. Nothing I can’t handle.” He looks back over at Therion. “Come sit down with us? I should’ve talked about all this with you first, you’re right. I didn’t know if you were ready for the conversation I was having with Cyrus, and I just wanted to get my concerns off my chest—”

Cyrus raises his hand to cut Alfyn off, and Alfyn’s words falter into silence. Cyrus is a man perfectly capable of controlling most situations and leaving no room for argument without his permission, but it’s always, _always_ a last resort. Therion is well aware that taking such initiative is incredibly uncomfortable for him—both in his dislike for excessive strictness and in that it doesn’t mesh well with his personality—and that only makes it more effective.

Therion doesn’t like it.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, Alfyn,” Cyrus says. He’s conducting himself calmly despite there being a hardened and thoroughly unimpressed look in his eyes. He’s angry and he has every right to be. “Therion, love, listen to me. I understand you’re frustrated, but you wouldn’t have listened to anything you overheard if it was brought directly to you. You require a delicate approach with things sometimes and this is not something you would have taken well even if the subject was broached with caution. I love you dearly, but I’m not going to let you disrespect _your_ _friend_ for trying to look after your health.”

Therion’s face is hot and his eyes burn with the telltale sensation of tears threatening to form. He wants to hide himself away, never to be seen again, but that’s not an option—especially not when he feels like he’s rooted to the spot.

“Go ahead and just hit me,” Therion grinds out through clenched teeth, because that’s all he can do. “I won’t fight back.”

“I— _Therion_ …”

“Just make it fucking _easy_! Just get it over with!”

“Therion, you know I’m not going to—”

“Fine. Fuck you too.” Therion’s voice is suddenly level, bordering on monotone, as he says that. He’s had these sorts of outbursts in front of Cyrus because it’s more than a little difficult to hide his neuroticism from the person he’s dating _and_ living with, but he’s never had them in front of anyone else—at least not like that. He’s humiliated and he never wants to see Alfyn again.

He turns on his heel and heads back down the hallway, ignoring anything else that’s said and slamming the bedroom door behind him.

People don’t get angry with him unless there’s a physical blow coming—especially not people who seldom get angry in the first place, like Cyrus. Things are easier on him that way, because someone hurting him to get out their anger toward him means he’s received his punishment from them, and the physical pain is more tolerable and shorter lived than knowing someone is upset with him.

But Cyrus isn’t someone who likes getting his hands dirty if he can help it. He has a reputation and he maintains a rather particular air about himself, and it wouldn’t do for him to be inflicting physical harm on Therion in front of a guest. He has the strength and force to do just that and Therion wouldn’t fight back, but he _can’t_ —it would be bad for his image.

Therion knows how to punish himself. He _knows_ what Cyrus wants because other people in the past have taught him well enough to be able to figure it out. No one’s image gets tarnished if Therion takes matters into his own hands. It’s entirely on _him_ what he chooses to do.

He pushes up one of his sleeves and grabs the dagger he keeps on his nightstand for a sense of security—one that’s seen much blood, but hardly ever his own. He swipes the blade haphazardly across his skin, about halfway up his forearm. It would have been higher up if his sleeve was easy to push up to his shoulder, but this is good enough.

Or it is until the door opens without a knock. Everything in Therion’s mind is screaming at him to drop the dagger and pull his sleeve back down, but he grips the weapon tighter as though it’s a safety blanket as he feels blood spill from the three unhidden wounds.

“Alfyn, bandages, and please be quick!” Cyrus shouts down the hallway. He gets on the bed to sit next to Therion, takes the dagger from the thief’s hands, and sets it aside on one of the pillows. “Please tell me what’s happened here, Therion.”

 _The sheets are going to get messed up,_ is what Therion wants to say. Instead, he says nothing as he blankly watches Cyrus’s hands grasping his own and squeezing gently. He’s too dizzy with confusion and shock to do anything else.

He hardly notices when Alfyn shows up in the doorway. He rushes over to the bed, sets everything in his hands down next to Therion, and grabs the wrist of the thief’s injured arm.

He mumbles a litany of _shit, fuck, okay, fuck, all right_ , then gives Therion’s hand back to Cyrus with a statement of, “Take this back for a sec.” Therion watches silently as Alfyn uncorks a vial of a translucent blue liquid—probably an antiseptic or something similar—and pours a bit on a piece of cloth. He hands the vial off to Cyrus, who automatically accepts it, and presses the cloth to the cuts.

That finally draws a sound from Therion, has him hissing through his teeth against the sting of it. He still feels dizzy, and the subtle but unfamiliar smell of the mystery liquid mixed with the pain isn’t helping.

“Just breathe, Theri. Hurts worse if you’re not,” Alfyn says, and a rush of air enters Therion’s lungs all at once as he realizes he stopped breathing. “There we go, you’re doing great.” It’s a simple encouragement that inexplicably means the world—and maybe more than that—to Therion.

Therion chances a glance at Cyrus. The silence on his part is too jarring not to.

He almost regrets it, because it hits him all at once what he’s done—not to himself, but to the man who he loves with everything that he _is_. The scholar is worrying at his lip and watching Alfyn’s actions with an utterly _shattered_ expression.

“I’m okay,” Therion whispers, trying to provide any amount of reassurance.

“You aren’t,” Cyrus responds. His voice is quiet, distant, detached, as though he’s taken leave of his emotions.

It’s hard to make sense of it. Therion only did what he was meant to. He only did what he was taught to do because he’s tired of relearning hard lessons every damn time he messes up, but the goalpost has moved again. In retrospect, though, it’s obvious this was the wrong move. When have the answers he’s been taught are correct _remained_ correct?

His head is foggy as always, but especially so now. He watches Alfyn try to care for the injuries properly, but more blood keeps welling up as soon as he moves the cloth to work at _cleaning_ the wounds rather than just keeping compression on them. For all the straight, mostly-even scars marring his skin from his wrists to his shoulders and from his knees to his hips, he doesn’t recall the bleeding ever being so difficult to stop.

“Cy, are you okay?” Therion asks. His voice doesn’t sound like his own.

“Please stay focused on yourself,” Cyrus replies. “You needn’t worry about anything else for now.”

Hearing Cyrus speak so flatly feels like a personal attack. Therion wonders if it is. It’s terribly uncharacteristic of the scholar and Therion doesn’t recall being spoken to by him in such a way before, at least not for the time they’ve been on _genuinely_ amicable terms.

_Oh, hold on…_

Suddenly something clicks into place. Cyrus has never _seen_ Therion like this before. He’s seen every scar on Therion’s body and knows which ones were dealt by his own hand, but he’s never seen any of the thief’s self-inflicted cuts before they’d healed into stripes of dark grey-brown or off-white, let alone freshly made, still-bleeding cuts.

Fuck.

“Hold this in place for me, Cy?” Alfyn asks. “Blood’s so thin I need to get something else. Ain’t clotting like it’s meant to.”

The hand holding Therion’s moves to keep the cloth pressed in place as Alfyn gets up. The loss of contact makes Therion want to cry.

“I can hold it,” Therion whispers, his free hand going to the cloth.

“Are you strong enough to?”

 _“Yes,”_ and it’s hard to keep it from coming out as a sob. “I can hold it down, please, just—your hand. Put it _back_.”

The reply is silent, coming purely in the form of Cyrus complying with the request.

“I’m sorry I made you mad,” Therion blurts out.

Cyrus presses a kiss to his forehead. “You didn’t. I would be more than grateful if we could talk this over, but I think it’s best to wait until everything’s handled first.”

Therion nods. There’s blood soaking through the cloth and he wishes it would just _clot_ already. The antiseptic hurts more than the cuts themselves do and he wants this to be over.

Alfyn returns with a glass of water, a stained-glass bottle, and a new cloth that’s soaked through with a mystery substance. “This should do it!”

The optimism and confidence seem entirely genuine, and Therion hesitantly chooses to be reassured.

Alfyn pushes Therion’s hand away and tosses the cloth to the side, somewhere out of the thief’s sight, to replace it with the new one. It hurts less, but it’s still painful.

“Hold this,” Alfyn says, and Therion does what he’s told. “I’ll take the other stuff back, Cyrus. Hold the water for a sec.” After the exchange, Alfyn corks the vial, checks that it won’t spill, and sets it aside. He yanks the cork out of the stained-glass bottle instead and dumps out two capsules full of something powdery and light yellow. “These should help.”

Alfyn shuts the bottle, sets it aside, and takes the water back. He instructs Cyrus to deal with handling the compression against the wounds so Therion can take the capsules.

The capsules are metallic against his tongue, but under that heavy flavor there’s a vague hint of saltiness that he would have missed had he not trained himself to pick up on every little thing. He washes them down with all the water in the glass, but the taste of iron isn’t washed down with them.

“What the hell?” Therion asks. He’s starting to feel more centered, more _himself_.

“Your blood’s real thin, Therion,” Alfyn says. “Those pills are meant to help. I’m gonna need more than I have but we can worry about that later.” He puts his hand back over the cloth, prompting Cyrus to remove his own. He gives an extra push against it before lifting it up. There’s blood smeared across his skin and crusted thick over the cuts, but it’s nothing a bit of cleaning won’t fix.

“Explains why there’s so damn much of it,” Therion says.

“Yeah, I think I’m gonna have you on two, maybe three, of those pills a day to get your blood thickened up again.”

“Gross.”

“Sorry I can’t make ’em taste better, but you won’t need ’em forever. Just ’til you start getting healthier.”

“And how long is _that_ supposed to take?”

The apothecary winces at the question. “…I, uh, I’m afraid it’s gonna be however long it takes you to gain your weight back. That’s why your blood’s thin in the first place.”

“This is bullshit.”

“You’re gonna need to start eating more. And you can’t be throwing everything up, neither, it’s really doing a number on you.”

Therion doesn’t argue. He knows he’s not going to win and he’s upset Cyrus more than enough for one evening.

The thief grits his teeth against the pain of his wounds being cleaned up, squeezing Cyrus’s hand as he watches it happen despite Alfyn’s suggestions to try to relax. He’s breathing steadily, but the tension in his muscles isn’t going away no matter how many times the apothecary says it’ll only make things hurt worse.

When the cuts are cleaned, they’re covered in an ointment that smells faintly of the Riverlands in summertime and wrapped up firmly with white bandages.

“How’s that feel?” Alfyn asks.

“Fine,” Therion says. “Thanks. I want to sleep.”

“A snack first? Maybe?”

Therion shakes his head. “I’m tired.”

There’s a _blink-and-miss-it_ sort of fear that flashes across Cyrus’s features that Therion almost _does_ miss. It makes him feel guilty, but not guilty enough to change his mind. “Are you sure you don’t want any?”

“No, I don’t have an appetite. I want to sleep.”

Alfyn’s eyebrows knit for a moment in a mix of contemplation and concern. “Cyrus, how d’you feel about me asking Prim to drop by?”

“May I ask _why_?”

“ ’Course ya can, it’s _your_ place. I’m just thinking she can talk sense better than either of us can.”

“Fucking _excuse_ me?” Therion asks. It’s not supposed to sound so irritated or accusatory, but he’s exhausted, mentally and physically, and desperately fighting to keep his patience from running out.

“She’d be able to understand you better than we can.”

 _Fucking **excuse** me?_ He doesn’t repeat himself, opting to stay silent instead, but it’s a better question now than it was the first time.

Cyrus raises his eyebrows in surprise and curiosity. “Does she? I never would have guessed.”

“I mean, it ain’t always an obvious thing. Skinny ain’t healthy for everyone, even if it looks it sometimes. And even if it is, you still can’t overdo it or you’re gonna die. Again, doesn’t always look it.”

Now that it’s been said, there are small subconscious observations coming to the forefront of Therion’s mind. When he and Cyrus found her at Sunshade and decided to help her in her pursuits in exchange for her helping the two of them with theirs, she was quite thin but with too much muscle for it to be noticeable unless given thought. She’d gained a lot of weight in their travels, and while Therion had only processed it as her gaining _more_ muscle, much of it wasn’t—and at a point, all of that muscle, though there was still just as much, ended up mostly concealed under a soft layer of fat.

_Huh._

“I think I’d encourage a visit from her, then, if it doesn’t trouble her too much,” Cyrus decides.

Therion isn’t sure he wants this. If Primrose is someone who can talk sense to him in all of this, he’s not sure he wants to see her at all.

He doesn’t say that. Cyrus has surely made up his mind on the matter anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes i write therion as being dark skinned (prim + tressa too). yes i write prim as being muscular AND chubby. my brain is massive & you are so fucking welcome for this. i'd also like you to know alfyn is trans.  
> 
> 
> anyway. the medical stuff. let's go over that (if you feel like it)
> 
> firstly, the physical things.  
> \- if you're too malnourished, even very minor injuries can leave scars. they might heal completely after a much longer period of time though  
> \- the strength of stomach acid is roughly that of battery acid. your stomach has a protective layer to prevent internal burning, but your throat, mouth, and skin don't have this sort of protection & can be badly harmed by frequent exposure for too long  
> \- malnutrition can lead to the thinning of the blood, iron-deficient anemia, and electrolyte imbalances. most common electrolyte imbalance is hyponatremia, which is low sodium. thin blood means you bleed more and that's especially bad if you're anemic  
> \- everyone has a unique set weight. some people are meant to be thin, other people are literally underweight if they aren't fat. there are also TONS of risks with being below your body's set weight but typically no risks with being above it (unless you have health issues that make it risky). the risks of being overweight are nonexistent and are actually related to poor diet (aka malnutrition), certain disabilities, and lack of fitness. this is so fucking simple please shove this info into your brain and never let it fall out
> 
> secondly, the medicines + whatnot.  
> \- the first thing that was used to clean up therion's cuts was just a cleaning agent with mild clot-promoting properties - like very mild, the clotting was meant to come mostly just from the compression  
> \- the second thing used to clean the cuts had a stronger clotting agent. still a disinfectant because it'd be pointless to have something to stop the bleeding but not clean the wound  
> \- the pill is effectively an iron + sodium supplement. it makes sense to me that hyponatremia would be at least SOMEWHAT understood in orsterra because of how much it makes you crave anything salty + how it makes you feel thirsty but then that just worsens the cravings. the iron part is because iron deficiency has a lot of bad side effects and is common if you're super malnourished. the mix of plants in the supplements is used to treat those symptoms/side effects but no one's figured out that it's the iron specifically  
> \- the ointment is just fantasy neosporin basically LOL


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **warnings: talk of self harm, mentions of alcoholism, suicidal ideation, internal justifications for self harm & ED habits**
> 
> oh to be a well-adjusted adult with consistent emotional maturity, great communication skills, and pretty good mental health. at least someone knows how to keep their priorities straight i guess & man do i wish that was relatable

Therion _officially_ wakes up the next morning after a night of disrupted and scattered sleep, hours before both Cyrus and the sun. He takes one of Cyrus’s hands in his own, careful not to wake him, and watches the scholar as he sleeps. The warmth of his sleep-hot skin, the steady rise and fall of the blanket over him as he breathes, the way his hair is mussed—all of it is perfect, and for once Therion doesn’t mind that he can’t fall back to sleep if he gets to pass the time like this. The only complaint, which isn’t _really_ a complaint, is the frequent and difficult-to-fight urge to kiss Cyrus awake.

The first shades of daybreak begin to spill into the room after gods-know-how-long and it only makes Cyrus look more beautiful. Therion watches with a quiet, subdued sort of awe as the light continues to grow. Rich purple fades to dusty pink and then into bright gold.

Therion doesn’t know if he’s seen anything more beautiful than Cyrus bathed in sunrise. Setting out at very first light, or sometimes sooner, when they were still on the road was typically a pain in the ass, but it had been worth it to watch the dawn wash over the scholar. It made his skin look like it was glowing, made his eyes sparkle in a way that had Therion’s stomach fluttering with butterflies that he spent so long ignoring, and gave his hair an ethereal honeyed hue.

Cyrus stirs a bit, then squints his eyes open. “G’morning…” he mumbles.

“Good morning,” Therion says.

“Have you been—” The scholar is cut off by a yawn that ends in an endearing little squeak in his throat. “Have you been awake for long?”

“A bit.”

“Are you able to have a talk about something?”

Therion’s heart skips a beat as he’s abruptly hit with anxiety. “…I think so. What about?”

The scholar pauses for several seconds, which is all the more anxiety-inducing. “A… a couple things, if you don’t mind. It’s all right if you’re not able to handle anything this early.”

“You’re angry at me,” Therion blurts out before he knows he’s going to say anything at all. “Or you were yesterday.”

Another yawn. The hand Therion is holding squeezes gently, lovingly. “I wasn’t angry at you. I was irritated by your outburst, certainly, but I believe it was more about Alfyn’s willingness to take unwarranted blame to calm you. It was wrong of you to let him do that and an apology is in order, but I know your emotions are very often difficult for you to think through and manage. I know _exactly_ what I’m doing when it comes to you, but I fear others won’t—and I especially fear that Alfyn is too quick to take a fall, so to speak, if it means being more charitable to you.”

“You sounded angry when you were talking to him about me. Before I threw a fit.”

“I… Did I? I’m shocked you could hear anything of the conversation at all.”

“Of course I could hear. You were angry that I wasn’t eating.”

Cyrus reaches out with his free hand to run it through Therion’s hair. “No, love, I was frustrated with myself because I hadn’t been able to figure more of this out sooner. I was frustrated that I'm not able to understand what you do to yourself. It’s difficult to watch you hurt yourself, Therion. A lot more difficult than you probably realize.”

Dumbfounded, the thief looks away. He doesn’t _want_ to think about how his actions against himself can affect others. That’s why he hurts _himself_ in the first place—it’s an outlet that doesn’t involve him hurting anyone else.

The alternation between the painful empty when he can feel the hunger and the tight constriction of his chest when he can’t is just the newest iteration of him taking out his self-directed loathing and frustration. Filling his stomach only to purge its contents afterward is how he copes with the constant emptiness. It feels like the physical equivalent of people meeting his emotional needs only to take it all away once he’s outlived his usefulness to them. It feels like the physical equivalent of how he lives every single day knowing there’s an emotional crash to leave him teetering on the edge of numbing himself up with more alcohol than anyone should even have access to at one time.

This can’t hurt other people. He wants to be empty and good and _pure_. For once in his life, he can finally have that. It hurts, but it only hurts _him_.

“Are you okay?” Cyrus asks gently.

“I’m okay,” Therion replies, but he can hear the uncertainty of it ringing in his own ears.

“Therion. I want the truth, please.”

Therion hates that sentence. He doesn’t enjoy lying and avoids it wherever he possibly can. It’s been forever since he’s told a lie outside of ones meant to protect his dignity, but he’s spent his whole life trying to preserve his dignity and sometimes he can’t tell when he’s being dishonest to do so.

“I’m sorry,” he apologizes.

“No, love. I know this is because of how life has treated you. I want the truth for _your_ sake. I really do fear that the lies you tell will be your undoing someday if you don’t learn to be honest.”

A merciless throat punch would have felt better than hearing that. Confronting reality is seldom a pleasant experience, as far as the things he tells himself to get by go, and he _doesn’t_ like being told by the person he trusts the most that he needs to. He’s perfectly content to make himself a cocoon of all the bullshit he’d prefer believing— _I'm fine, I’m not doing anything wrong, the things I do to myself aren’t going to affect other people, there’s nothing I can do differently, I know how to face whatever I need to_ —and hide within it until it rips him apart.

He doesn’t think he has the option. He doesn’t think he ever believed he had the option, despite subconsciously always telling himself that he did.

“I thought you were mad,” Therion whispers. “I wanted you to kick the shit out of me to get it over with. I thought—I thought I did what I was supposed to when I…” He trails off, swallowing hard to keep his more overwhelming emotions at bay just a bit longer. He doesn’t want to mention it out loud. He doesn’t want it acknowledged out loud.

Cyrus’s gaze flicks down to Therion’s arm for a split second. “Did you believe I wanted you to hurt yourself?”

“…I’m sorry.”

“Why did you think that?”

“I’m _sorry_.”

“I’m not upset with you.” He cups one of Therion’s cheeks, gently rubbing his thumb over the thief’s cheekbone. “Why did you think I wanted you to do that?”

Therion closes his eyes as they start to burn with tears. Cyrus turns him soft, makes him melt, and it’s scary to feel things and be unable to hide them away from everyone. “I thought you were angry. If you weren’t going to hurt me yourself, I thought… I thought it’d make you feel better if I…”

The hand on Therion’s cheek is beginning to tremble, subtly and almost unnoticeably. “I would _never_ want that. I implore you to come speak to me if you ever consider doing that again. I want to help where I’m able, and I hate when you’re in pain.”

Pain is the only way he knows how to deal with everything he’s been through and everything it’s made him into, but he can’t say that. He chooses instead to take the hand he’s already holding with both of his and pulls it close to his chest.

“I love you. I’m afraid I need to start getting out of bed now, however.”

“I love you too.” He squeezes Cyrus’s hand before reluctantly letting it go.

The scholar sits up and stretches, and it sounds like every joint in his body snaps. (It took weeks of that before Therion stopped asking if he was okay every time, and he still sometimes comments on it.) “Since you’re awake, I’d like it if you had something for breakfast.”

 _Of course you fucking would,_ is what Therion wants to say as he props himself on one of his elbows. “Just an orange, I think.”

Cyrus pulls off his nightshirt and begins folding it. He’s always been particular about his clothing, and it’s cute in a way that’s unique to _him_. “I’d suggest more, if you’re able. Alfyn helped me bake some banana bread last night after you went to bed. You’re welcome to it if you have a change of heart.”

“Maybe,” Therion replies, but he doubts it.

“I understand this is difficult for you.” The nightshirt is set aside, and Cyrus moves onto removing and folding the loose-fitting sleep pants. “There’s a disconnect here that I don’t know can ever be reconciled in a way I’m capable of comprehending, but I want to be here for you as much as I can be.”

“I’m damaged goods,” Therion says. “That’s about all you need to know.”

Cyrus stands up and gets his clothes from the wardrobe. He tosses them out on the bed and starts getting dressed, each article of clothing pulled on with care. “You are _not_ damaged goods, Therion. You are worth far more than life has taught you to feel you are. There’s nothing I, or anyone, can do to fix what’s happened to you, but I can promise that there is so much in yourself that you have yet to learn how to see.”

Rendered speechless for a moment, Therion continues to watch the other get dressed and curses the way his bicep is starting to feel weak under the strain of holding up his body. Cyrus always has something to say, and while that’s a trait the thief used to be annoyed by and that remains fun to make jabs about to this day, it certainly benefits him from time to time.

Therion spent so much of his life hardly feeling like a real person, always chasing the next hit of adrenaline just to remind himself that he still existed at all—and then Cyrus came along, helped pry his heart open little by little, and nearly always had the correct things to say to every new bit of information he received. After a while, it made Therion feel like he was _actually_ alive, like maybe there was more to existing than just the next bottle of stolen booze or the next high-risk theft or the next risky, dangerous sexual encoumter.

And maybe there is. Maybe Cyrus is right when he promises there is. It’s a lot of work, mentally, to hold himself back from pouring trust into every promise Cyrus makes—even at times when he’s simultaneously incapable of doing so. The time he unintentionally puts toward trying to reconcile his faith in Cyrus with his constant doubts about his worth is cognitive dissonance at its finest, and he knows it’s faulty logic but he doesn’t know how to stop.

“Do you want me to come out for breakfast?” Therion asks.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to have a bit more of your time while we eat. Just us.” He slips his hair tie around his wrist, picks up his comb, and starts fixing up his hair. “Alfyn will probably be trying to keep you company while I’m gone anyway, so you’d best be prepared for that.” He holds the comb in his mouth in case he needs it again as he pulls at his hair with routine precision before tying it in place.

“Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

“I’ll be back in a few moments.”

It isn’t a coincidence that the orange Cyrus brings him is a particularly large one, but Therion doesn’t provide a comment on that. As he starts picking at the peel, he asks, “What else is there to talk about?”

Cyrus hesitates, clearly nervous about it. He fidgets a bit, doing the repetitive little motions with his fingers that he always does when he’s trying to calm himself. “When I came in and found you crying and letting Alfyn hold you like that, um— This isn’t meant to make you feel bad or like you have any obligation to do _anything_ that makes you uncomfortable, but it… it admittedly made me quite jealous. And I feel that’s an important sort of thing to communicate in a relationship.”

“Jealous?” Therion repeats.

“Yes, but that isn’t on you. I suppose it’s only a matter of requiring a bit of reassurance to keep my head clear and make it easier to think rationally.”

“It wasn’t really anything. I barely even realized I was crying, and he grabbed me pretty suddenly… Wait, what exactly did you _think_ was happening?”

“Nothing different from what you said, but it still…” Cyrus shakes his head. “I don’t know. You barely let me see breakdowns like that and you never let me hold you like that when you do. And you truly have no obligation to! I can’t even _begin_ to imagine the things you’ve been through, let alone the extent of the scars they’ve left on your psyche. I know it’s related to that and I never want to ask more than you’re comfortable with.”

“Thank you,” Therion says. It feels like the correct response. “For telling me. It wouldn’t have happened at all if I’d realized… But I guess that doesn’t really do anything about the fact that you want to help me like that too.”

“No, it doesn’t, but just mentioning this makes me feel _leagues_ better.”

Part of him wonders if this is an elaborate guilt trip. It wouldn’t be the first time someone has tried to make him feel guilty with false earnestness.

But Cyrus isn’t like that. He says what he means, regardless of if it will be well-received or not.

“Tomorrow is the weekend and I plan to be home for it,” the scholar continues. “Alfyn will need to check you out a few times a day, but that shouldn’t take up _too_ much time.”

“I wouldn’t have the patience if it did,” Therion mutters.

“Therion, darling, I know this is not how you want things to go, but please trust when I say we both have your best interests at heart.”

“I know you do.” _That’s the problem._

“We want the best for you. _I_ want the best for you.”

“Well _I_ don’t.”

Cyrus lapses into silence for a moment. Therion almost apologizes but doesn’t get a chance to before the scholar speaks again. “I can’t force you to do things you don’t want to. I just… I suppose I just wish you could see yourself the way I do.”

In the end, Therion thinks, it’s a matter of determining which one of them is correct. Therion trusts Cyrus more than he trusts himself, but somehow this is a difficult concept to process.

* * *

Within fifteen minutes or so of Cyrus heading out, there’s a knock at the bedroom door. Therion hasn’t finished his orange yet, but he’s been slowly and reluctantly working through it one wedge at a time.

“Come in,” he says quietly, against his actual wishes.

The door opens and Alfyn peeks his head in. “I’m here to check you out. You feeling up for that?”

 _Absolutely the fuck not._ “I guess so.”

“I don’t wanna push you none, but I need to make sure you’re doing okay.” He steps entirely into the room, hands full of an assortment of things, and kicks the door shut behind him. “Brought you some water, some medicine, new bandages… Y’know, the essentials.” He grins, comforting and bright, as he hands Therion the glass of water and sets everything else down on the bed. “Nice to see you eating something.”

“Shut up,” Therion snaps, more venomously than intended.

“Did I say something wrong?”

“I don’t want to hear about the fact I’m eating. I already know what the hell I’m doing. _Don’t_ talk about it.”

Alfyn nods and doesn’t ask anything further. “I’m gonna have you take these first.” He takes the same stained-glass bottle he had yesterday and dumps out two of the pills inside. “Now I forgot to mention this before, but these can make your stomach hurt if you don’t eat anything with ’em. If you can’t manage anything more, I should have something to ease the pain.”

Expecting the metallic flavor makes it no less odd to be swallowing something that doesn’t taste like it should be ingested, but he doesn’t protest. It’s unsurprising that they can cause stomach upset, and that also explains the pains he was having last evening as he was waiting for sleep to come.

“Still don’t like those, huh?”

“You can tell?”

“Yeah. No problem there, I think it’s endearing.”

 _Endearing?_ Therion tries to dismiss any thoughts that could arise from the word. He doesn’t want this being weird, but he wouldn’t put it past himself to _make_ it weird. Disgusting.

“I might need something,” Therion says. “Hurt my stomach a lot last night. The cramps were fucking unbelievable.”

“I want you to try to eat first, if you don’t mind.”

Therion rolls his eyes.

“Gonna need that hand now,” Alfyn says. Therion passes him the half-empty glass of water, and Alfyn stretches to place it on Cyrus’s nightstand.

He takes Therion’s wrist with an odd sort of gentleness. It’s not that Alfyn has never cared for him before in a gentle, tender sort of way—that’s the apothecary’s baseline, after all—but this feels different somehow. More loving.

It feels, Therion realizes with an uncomfortable pang of regret, like an _apology_. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but each second of contact with Alfyn feels like he’s being apologized to for some reason.

“This feels different,” Therion says without thinking.

“Different?” Alfyn asks as he unwinds the bandage from the cuts. The skin it covered is a slightly lighter shade of brown than the rest of Therion’s skin and has a sickly tint to it, but the injuries themselves look like they’re healing.

“It’s nothing.”

“You sure?” He grabs a cloth, covers it in the same translucent antiseptic as yesterday, and starts carefully wiping up the skin that was trapped under the bandage.

Therion pauses. “…Feels different than when you’ve looked after me in the past.”

“Might be. Feels a lot different for me, too, to tell the truth. Like, mentally.”

The thief raises his eyebrows a fraction with curiosity. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I guess it’s like, when you’re all banged up fresh outta battle or something, it ain’t ’cause you _wanna_ be. But now…” He pauses as he sets the cloth and the antiseptic aside, and then proceeds to apply more of the ointment. “Guess it’s just sad, really. Seeing what you do to yourself.”

 _Shut up._ He doesn’t want to hear about how Alfyn doesn’t like seeing him self-destruct. He wants to do it without having to acknowledge that it affects other people. It _doesn’t_. These are his decisions to make and only affect _him_ because they’re only ever about him. He would never hold a knife against anyone else unprovoked, but cutting himself open comes so easily that it _can’t_ be wrong.

“I know this ain’t about me,” Alfyn continues as he redresses the wounds, “but it pains me to see you doing so bad.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Not if nothing changes.”

“I always come out of everything just fine.” More quietly, he adds, “Even when I don’t exactly _want_ to.”

“Your luck is gonna run out if you don’t start looking after yourself better. Medicines and magic and spite can only take a man so far. You hide it well enough with your clothes, but seeing under ’em, it really looks like any day could be the end of the line. It’d be bad for anyone, but twenty-three’s cutting it real close to when this shit gets to be almost guaranteed a death sentence.”

“You can’t fix this.”

“I can’t fix anything you don’t wanna fix yourself. But I can try to make you want to, and damn it, that’s _exactly_ what I plan to do.” Alfyn stands up and urges Therion to stand as well with a light pull at his wrist. He complies. “And if you don’t mind me asking…”

When Therion doubts the question is coming, he prompts, “Spit it out.”

“Well, I just… I wanna know why you do this. What’s it about? What’s it _do_ for you?”

What _does_ it do for him? He’s never tried to articulate the reason for anything behind his recklessness or self-destruction. He’s never had to and he’s never wanted to. He doesn’t want to now, either, but he’s desperately racking his brain to come up with _something_ regardless. There has to be a way he can put it into words, surely—he’s stupid, but not stupid enough to do drastic things without reason. If he wants to keep telling himself that, he has to figure out how to answer the question.

“It’s the only thing that keeps me sane,” he says finally. “Nothing else does.”

“You think,” and now Alfyn’s guiding Therion out of the bedroom with the hand on the thief’s wrist, “there’s ways to get around that?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like, you think that maybe if you asked other people to help you, they would?”

Therion pauses, trying to measure out the answer he’s going to give. He doesn’t want to talk about this, but he feels trapped in the conversation. “I think that’s the reason I don’t.”

“You mind telling me more?”

 _Because I don’t want to be too dependent. Because I already know I’m too damn clingy for most people to want around and taking my problems to anyone would make me intolerable. Because relying on myself is all I’ve ever known and changing that now would be unsafe._ “Not really.”

“Well, whenever you’re ready to talk about it, I’ll be here for you.” He pauses for a moment, deliberating. “…And, uh, I won’t tell Cyrus anything you ain’t ready for him to know, ’s long you promise me you’ll tell him as soon as you can.”

Therion would question if that’d count as lying by omission or something along those lines had anyone else made an offer like that. He has difficulty with right and wrong sometimes no matter how strong his personal convictions are, and harder yet is determining ethical technicalities. He prefers not to think about those technicalities, but when it’s about something that relates to Cyrus…

As far as the thief is concerned, however, Alfyn’s moral compass is in perfect working order. Therion has seldom questioned it, and the occasional uncertainty only comes from Alfyn being _too soft_ on others.

“Thank you,” Therion says. “And I… I’m… I’m _sorry_.” Getting the word out is a struggle that causes embarrassment and vexation to cut into him like hot blade.

“For?”

When the two of them enter the kitchen, Therion hardly realizes that’s where they’ve been headed this whole time. Alfyn must’ve been doing that on purpose, guiding slowly but steadily to keep the panic low for as long as possible.

It shouldn’t make Therion feel vindictive, but it does, and that only makes this conversation more difficult.

“I was being a jackass yesterday,” Therion says.

Alfyn shrugs as he takes the knife already set out beside one of the loaves of bread. “Doesn’t bother me none. I’ve never seen you worked up like that before.”

The thief’s face flushes and he stares at the floor. He wishes he could remember how to keep his cool, unaffected demeanor in moments like these. He’s gotten too used to letting other people in and the way he keeps his eyes down in embarrassment is more than enough to prove that.

“I didn’t mean to lose my shit like that.”

“Didn’t think you _did_ mean to, but I ain’t mad either way. You haven’t gotten things too easy, ’specially not lately.” Three slices on the counter, and Alfyn is reaching for the cupboard where the plates are kept. It’s comforting to see him settling in and making himself at home, but it comes with an inkling of anxiety that Therion doesn’t want to reflect on. “You want some?”

Therion hesitates, breath catching. _Yes,_ he does—more than anything, as always, he wants to cave and eat something without thinking about how he’ll either hate himself or end up puking it. But _no,_ he doesn’t want anything to do with food or eating.

It’s an impossible conflict, really. People die if they don’t eat, and he knows this because there are few things in the world that are more obvious, but he’s not sure how much he’d mind if he died. He’s never been a good judge of that. His survival instincts don’t kick in until the last second, and every moment before can only be filled with speculations as to if this is the time they’ll finally fail. Pride and spite are all he has preserving him, and both are in a constant ebb and flow now that he finally has a sense of stability in his life. Funny how that’s worked out.

Except, despite his long history of suicidal thinking, he also doesn’t think _this_ is how he wants to go.

“I guess,” he says finally. “Just a tiny bit. Half a piece, maybe.”

“You can have one of the pieces I already—”

 _“No.”_ Therion winces at how much of a knee-jerk reaction the rejection is, but there’s a thrill of satisfaction at the fact one of the pieces Alfyn had already cut could be considered a _tiny bit_. “I can cut it myself.”

For some reason, Alfyn seems intent on cutting Therion’s piece for him. He knows something Therion isn’t catching onto, and the thief hates that. He doesn’t ask—he doesn’t want to let on that he’s noticed. He wants to crack this on his own, and a particularly vengeful and controlling part of him wants to see if he’s able to turn the tables without Alfyn realizing.

“How’s this?” Alfyn asks.

Therion studies the piece cut off for him. It’s… not _too_ much, he supposes. It could certainly be less, a bit thinner, but it’s not worth being fussy about.

“Half of that, I think,” Therion suggests.

“You think?” The apothecary slices the piece in two. “You might need a little more, if you can manage.”

“I don’t think I can.”

Alfyn reaches up and takes down another small saucer. “Well, that’s all right! You can take both halves and if you can’t keep eating after a certain amount, you don’t have to.”

 _No. No, no, no, no._ “I can come back for more if I want it.”

“Don’t you think it’s more convenient to not have to go back if you decide you want more?”

That’s exactly the issue, but he can’t _say_ that. Whatever game Alfyn is trying to play, Therion is going to win. He hasn’t figured it out yet, but he _will_ , and he’s going to fight back because losing isn’t an option.

For now, he decides to concede. He knows he’s going to eat everything on the plate. It’ll be a process of him ripping off little chunks, chewing them excessively, and waiting unreasonably long until the next bite, but the plate will be cleared and he’s going to hate himself for it.

He’s had breakfast before, though. He has breakfast most days, and rarely does he throw it up. But he eats as little as possible, isn’t being monitored by anyone, and knows he can get away with shoving his fingers down his throat afterward if he decides that’s what he needs. He knows how to make himself sick without raising Cyrus’s suspicions, but Alfyn would surely catch on right from the beginning.

This is far, far outside of what’s become his comfort zone.

As they head out to the main room, Alfyn snaps his fingers. “Right! There’s another thing I should probably give you. Dunno if you’ll need it, so we’ll see in a little bit.”

“Another thing?” Therion wrinkles his nose reflexively. “Hopefully tastes better than what you’re giving me for my blood problems.”

“I don’t _think_ it tastes like anything, but you might disagree, being sensitive to that sort of thing and all. But I’ve never gotten complaints about it, so I’m gonna say it’ll probably go down better than the pills.”

Well, at least there’s that.

Alfyn tries to make small talk as they eat. Therion isn’t terribly interested, answering every attempt at conversation with a halfhearted, disinterested reply or with silence. That doesn’t deter the apothecary, which is unsurprising, because it never deterred him when they were traveling either.

Unfortunately, but as expected, Therion finishes both halves and decides he’d rather be dead than live with the weight of it in his stomach—especially with how the occasional gagging started after the first half followed by the second half causing several minutes of burping from the stomach acid bubbling up into his throat. It’s quelled by a tonic Alfyn provides, but it’s humiliating nonetheless and it leaves him never wanting to eat again.

* * *

He’s given a ‘limited mobility’ order when he tries to excuse himself to go on a walk. Alfyn can’t force him to stay, but it certainly feels like he can, and Therion quickly gives up the argument and goes back to bed.

His four-hour nap is interrupted when Alfyn wakes him to change the bandages and offer more food that Therion begrudgingly eats a bit of. He doesn’t get to sleep again and decides to stay in bed and read after a while of staring at the ceiling.

Therion’s reading is interrupted again when Alfyn brings him dinner, but he can’t be too upset about the intrusion—it’s not like he can focus on the words well enough to retain any of them, and reading is hardly a strong suit of his in the first place. He clears half his plate, hopefully looking less self-conscious and fragile than he feels, and is given another dose of the same tonic he had earlier.

When he’s left alone again, he returns to the book he was trying to read and finds that he’s still entirely incapable of reading comprehension. He sets the book aside and stares at the ceiling again, wondering what the hell is keeping Cyrus at the academy so late.

Maybe he’s still too clingy for his own good.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> therion is dyslexic. that's it, that's the entire take.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **warnings: references to sexual abuse and a mention of emaciation**
> 
> so a lot of this chapter is porn. as a disclaimer because it happens here, you need to Not be biting or even sucking a person's neck too hard and you should also consider keeping this in mind if you write smut. it's not exactly safe unless you know exactly what you're doing, which probably sounds ridiculous, but listen. hickeys and bruises are both the result of popping blood vessels, and as you may have noticed, your neck has various large veins and two entire arteries. this isn't to say hickeys on someone's neck are dangerous but being too aggressive with someone's neck absolutely is. you may also be surprised to learn that hair pulling is ALSO dangerous if not done in a certain way.  
> all that being said, cyrus is a very smart man who knows how to consult medical experts before he engages in anything that seems potentially risky so he knows what he's doing LOL  
> (cyrus is the only one of the two who thinks to get medical advice/professional input. just asks whatever he wants to know directly to alfyn's face if he can't find it in a book, and alfyn is thankful that ONE of these motherfuckers has heard of this fascinating concept called "being responsible")

The front door opens sometime after sunset, and Therion sits up expectantly. He rubs his eyes as though he’s been sleeping, because it certainly _feels_ like he has been. He wishes he wasn’t so clingy and overly needy, but he’s met with an overwhelming sense of relief knowing Cyrus is home.

There’s a brief exchange between Cyrus and Alfyn when the scholar enters, but it hardly lasts a few sentences before there’s the click of Cyrus’s shoes hitting the floor and conversation ends there. A few seconds later, the bedroom door is swinging open and quickly shutting.

“How are you feeling?” Cyrus asks, calm and even-tempered as always but there’s something _more_ here.

“Bored out of my mind,” Therion replies. “You were out late.”

The scholar wastes no time in getting on the bed and unfastening his jacket—gods, why does he wear the damn thing like that?—to toss it aside. “I got caught up in other things, unfortunately.”

Cyrus’s lips were pressed against Therion’s before the thief could reply. There are fingers curling into his hair and a hand on his thigh, and his mind blanks as a shot of arousal burns through him.

And Therion thought _he_ was the one who had all the unexpected spikes in his libido.

When the kiss breaks, Therion gives a breathless laugh. “Miss me much?”

“Perhaps a little.” Cyrus ducks his head to kiss at the other’s neck. “Today seemed to drag on _forever_ and I’m just glad to be home now.”

“Usually I—ah, I need to tease you a— _a bit_ —to get you all _needy— Oh, Cyrus_ …” Therion’s voice breaks off into a shaky gasp of his partner’s name, punctuating the way the scholar sucks particularly roughly at his neck.

“I prefer to think of it as me having a better grip on my composure despite my libido.”

“Interesting thing to hear from the man who’s clearly been ready to fuck before even getting home.”

Cyrus bites as if in retaliation, hard and painful until Therion is unable to swallow back a moan. “And _yours_ is an interesting comeback for a man who I already have at my mercy.”

Therion bites his lip to keep from whining at Cyrus’s words, and he squirms a little as he tries get more contact. All he gets in return is being shoved back and having his hips forced down and kept in place.

“Oh, you _like_ that, don’t you?” Cyrus teases.

The thief tries to wriggle away from the hold on his hips but there’s no point—it’s empty rebellion by now. “I think you already know the answer to that.”

“This is true.” One of Cyrus’s hands pushes up under Therion’s shirt, finding his chest and applying an amount of pressure that feels like a _threat_. “But I want to hear it from you. You can answer a simple question, can’t you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah, I’m afraid not.” More weight starts to press down on the thief’s chest and it’s _undeniably_ intentional. “Now why don’t you be good and tell me? You _like_ this, don’t you? You _like_ being completely at my mercy. You _want_ me to use you like the good little whore you are.”

Therion whimpers. He’s usually the one taking the dominant role, making the orders, pushing Cyrus around. It’s almost overwhelming when Cyrus flips the script, causing oversensitivity to set into every nerve ending in his body.

Submission to Cyrus feels _so_ different from every other time he’s undertaken it. He’s used to submitting to whoever decides to pick him up for an easy lay, doing whatever he’s told, reminding himself he’s enjoying it whenever he wonders if he really is, hardly ever feeling good enough to make noises louder than gasps and sighs. The absence of all those things with Cyrus coupled with how uncommon it’s become for him to be in a position to submit leave him pliant and reactive in a way that’s _undoubtedly_ pleasant.

“Please fuck me,” he breathes out.

“I don’t believe that’s an answer to _anything_ I asked. Have you not been paying attention?”

“ _I have._ I have, I just—feels too good to focus.”

The scholar smacks his thigh, hard enough that it stings despite Therion still wearing his pants. “But that’s not _my_ problem, is it?”

“ _No_ , no, it’s not, I’m—” The apology is cut short as Cyrus moves one of his hands to grind his palm against Therion’s growing erection.

There’s a look on Cyrus’s face that is reserved exclusively for providing Therion with comfort in this sort of situation. It’s a fondness that reassures Therion that this is all just bedroom play. There’s no truth behind Cyrus calling him names or saying he wants to use him or expressing disappointment at not receiving proper, coherent answers—those are all part of an act he puts on to more smoothly slip into a dominant role and to play into things that fuel Therion’s arousal. He is Cyrus’s _equal_ , no matter how much the scholar is willing to degrade and speak down to him during sex.

This, Therion thinks, must be part of what it means to be truly loved—being able to get off on his partner calling him a whore or a cum dumpster or a fuck doll or whatever else and _knowing_ the whole time that none of it has real intent or truth behind it.

His past is full of many, many people who called him those things and meant it. Back then, the thing feeding into his libido was how good it felt to be useful for once as he let himself be fucked while constantly repeating _‘I like this because of course I do’_ to himself to tolerate whatever was being done to him.

Through the heavy haze of lust, Therion realizes dimly that Cyrus hasn’t undressed at all. The only thing he’s taken off is his jacket, and there’s something _deeply_ arousing about the thought that the scholar has simply been too carried away with his own need to bother with removing his clothing at all.

Cyrus pulls his hand away from Therion’s clothed cock to retrieve the lubricant, and Therion whimpers and pushes his hips up at the loss of contact. Rather than doing anything with the lube, Cyrus hands it to the thief, who takes it with mild confusion as his brain goes into overdrive trying to figure out what’s being asked of him.

“Put on a show for me, darling,” Cyrus says, his tone vaguely commanding. “I want to see you fuck yourself open.”

The thief is hit with another thrill of heat and his body is so warm it’s nearly uncomfortable. Therion adjusts himself and starts wriggling out of his pants.

“Sit up,” Cyrus demands once Therion has his pants tossed to the side.

“H-huh? But I—”

“Sit up, Therion. Or have you forgotten how to take orders?”

That has Therion sitting up without further comment, so quickly that it makes his head spin. Cyrus grabs his previously discarded jacket, wraps it over Therion’s shoulders, and fastens it in place at the collar. Once the thief registers what’s happened, his entire body jerks with the force of how _hot_ it is that Cyrus had the thought to do this in the first place, let alone _acted on it_.

“Can I—” Therion’s question is cut off with a heavy, needy exhale. “Can I… start preparing myself now?”

“I don’t know,” Cyrus replies with a coy little smirk. “ _Can_ you?”

“ _May_ I?”

“You may.”

Without wasting another second, Therion is settling down into a position where he can finger-fuck himself while having it on display for Cyrus. He coats two of his fingers in the lubricant and pushes them inside himself with a soft groan.

“Beautiful,” Cyrus murmurs, knowing _exactly_ what he’s doing. “Utterly gorgeous.”

Therion gasps at the praise and squirms under his own touch. He wants to start jerking himself off, too, because this isn’t _enough_ —but he also knows better than to entertain the idea of doing that at all. He wants to do only what Cyrus tells him to, as long as he’s willing and comfortable and able. He’s all three of those things currently, so there’s no way he can get around the fact that he hasn’t received permission to do anything more than this.

“Want your fingers,” Therion pants.

“I’m afraid that isn’t part of this arrangement.”

“That—that doesn’t stop me fr-from _wanting_ … Yours are—are thicker and longer than mine and— _ohhhh, that feels good_ …”

Cyrus maintains a look of feigned indifference as he watches Therion work himself open. He’s clearly _not_ unaffected, though, because there’s nothing subtle about the way his erection is straining against the confines of his pants. He loves playing the part of an unbothered spectator when he decides to take control and this time is no different, and there’s something _intensely_ validating about seeing Cyrus act this way when the proof it’s a façade is on display.

“You want me,” Therion pants.

Cyrus’s expression turns somewhat inquisitive, a small but intentional shift. “Is that so?”

Hearing the faux nonchalance in the other’s voice makes Therion’s blood turn to steam, and the sudden surge of extra heat through his veins makes him grind down against his fingers.

“I—I mean, I’d hope so…” He gasps and tilts his head to the side. He’s used to exposing his neck for Cyrus, but with the jacket pinned at his throat like it’s a cloak, the extra fabric makes it cover his neck more than he’d like. But it’s _Cyrus’s_ , and that more than makes up for it.

“Another finger,” Cyrus says, ignoring Therion’s previous comment. “Or two. You _are_ horribly impatient, after all.”

Therion pulls his fingers out of himself to lube them up more, groaning at the momentary loss of sensation. When he gets back to work, he uses four fingers, desperate to be deemed ready enough to be fucked. He doesn’t know what Cyrus’s standards for ‘ready enough’ will be because it changes every time—maybe it’ll be about how loosened Therion is, how desperate Therion gets, how quick Cyrus starts to crack.

Whatever the requirement is for the scholar to give in, Therion hopes it’s soon. He’s leaking steadily with just how badly he _needs_ to be fucked and it’s leaving a wet spot on his shirt. 

“I—I _want_ —” It breaks off into a whine that he tries and fails to swallow back. “Want to touch myself…”

“Is that not what you’re doing?”

“My _cock_ , Cyrus.” He squirms, trying to make a point of how much he needs it.

With a small but mischievous smirk, Cyrus says, “Quite a predicament for you if I say no, isn’t it? Beg and I’ll consider it.”

“F-fuck you.”

“In that case, get your fingers out of yourself.”

“ _Fuck_ , Cyrus, _no_ —”

“I told you to take them _out_ , Therion. Surely you can follow a simple order.”

Therion whines high in his throat but does as he’s told. “I-I’m sorry, Cyrus, please, _please_ , I need—”

He’s cut off as he’s shoved back, and his head hits the headboard. Cyrus pulls at the collar of the jacket to have better access to Therion’s neck, and the thief immediately tilts his head again to make it easier.

Cyrus is gentle with it at first, gentle sucks that have hardly a chance at leaving hickeys, and Therion sighs at the pleasure of it. Then the scholar abruptly becomes rougher with it, _painful_ in how aggressively he’s sucking at the sensitive skin, and Therion can’t choke back the loud moan that bubbles up from his throat.

“A-Alfyn might… _Ah—_ He’s _going_ to hear if you keep—”

“Is that an issue for you?” Cyrus asks, pulling back somewhat.

There are a lot of things Therion can come back with, but with his mind is blank to everything except his lust, it’s hard to get his thoughts in order. What he doesn’t expect is how he eventually breathlessly replies, _“Make me scream.”_

Cyrus’s eyes fall shut for a moment as he exhales heavily, but he composes himself a second later. The damage to his façade has been done, far more of a crack than his _very_ obvious erection, and Therion can see that his simple, three-word sentence pierced through all of Cyrus’s defenses in one go.

“Filthy whore,” Cyrus scolds. He fiddles with his pants to push them down just far enough to fuck Therion, and the hasty motion of lubing up his cock is somehow as fluid as it is impatient.

Therion doesn’t have to do any of the work. He’s not given an order to get on his hands and knees, told to readjust, or anything else. Cyrus takes the initiative entirely, from flipping Therion around to shoving his cheek down against the pillow to raising his hips up and keeping them there with a bruising grip—and when the scholar pushes in, Therion turns his face further into the pillow to stifle a moan.

“You told me to make you scream,” Cyrus points out, voice slightly strained. He grabs a fistful of Therion’s hair and pulls, forcing the thief to stop muffling himself. “You are going to _scream_ for me, Therion, and you are _not_ to stifle yourself.”

Therion gives a low whine. “I’m sorry, I— _ah!_ Fuck, _there, there, please, there_ —!”

He’s certain he’s already loud enough to be overheard, but he also knows it wouldn’t matter if he wasn’t. This is fairly standard once he’s submissive and needy, but he _knows_ Cyrus can make him louder—and he’s going to.

“So perfect like this,” Cyrus praises, voice almost breaking with each hard thrust in. “Like you were _made_ to be used like this.”

Therion gives a long, desperate moan, hips jerking in a vain attempt to get _some_ sort of friction. He wants to touch himself almost as much as he wants to please Cyrus, and the effort of withholding is making his whole body shaky. He must be making _such_ a mess with his constant, steady dribble of pre, and all he knows is that he needs to be good but he also really, _really_ needs to be touched.

“You’re so— _so_ perfect, Therion… Just a pretty little slut who _loves_ being at—at my mercy— _oh_ , you have _no_ idea how badly I’ve wanted you _all evening_ …” Cyrus groans, a sound that gets caught in his throat as his thrusts get _even rougher_ , and his hold both on Therion’s hair and hip get tighter. “You are an utter wreck, just for me, be-because are _all mine_ — _Ah_ , Therion, you’re absolutely gorgeous, _feels so good to be inside you._ ”

Therion digs his fingernails into the bedsheets with a loud, desperate sob. It’s the only thing he can do to keep from trying to jerk himself off. _“Cy, please, Cy, just fucking touch me please, I’ll do anything, fuck, Cy, please—”_

He’s cut off by a something that borders on a scream when Cyrus wraps his fingers around his cock and starts pumping quickly. His hold is surprisingly unsteady, but that only adds to how good it feels. It’s physical evidence of how needy Cyrus himself is, as if his wavering voice hadn’t made it clear enough.

“ _Cy_ ,” Therion whines, “I don’t—I _can’t_ …” He trails off, unable to finish the thought.

“I-I know, _ah_ , me too…” His rhythm stutters for a moment. “You feel so good. So—so beautiful, so handsome— _Flawless_ , even, such a lovely little _slut_. And you are _all mine._ ”

Therion can’t help it. With Cyrus speaking him to like that while jerking him off with the occasional swipe over the head of his cock, it’s _too much_. He lets out an incomprehensible cry that’s probably a repetition of Cyrus’s name as his orgasm crashes over him. He cums over the bed and his own stomach as he’s fucked through the high, and his hands twist tightly in the sheets against the intensity of it.

It takes Cyrus a handful more thrusts to finish, each one causing overstimulation to lance through Therion’s entire body. Before long, though, Cyrus is pulling Therion up a little to bite down on the thief’s neck as he spills inside him with a muffled moan.

Once Cyrus was finishes riding out his own climax, he lets Therion go and allows him slump down against the bed before collapsing beside him. He reaches out to rub circles against Therion’s back, a touch that’s light and gentle.

“How are you feeling, love?” Cyrus murmurs.

Therion takes a moment to find his voice. His throat hurts a bit and his head is going to take some time to clear up. After a long pause, he replies, “Completely fucked out.”

Cyrus lets out a breathless huff of laughter. “You certainly look it.”

“Felt _really_ good.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

The thief rolls his eyes. “As if it’s ever _not_ good.” He reaches up to hold one of Cyrus’s wrists affectionately. “Work keeps you late after classes end and that gets you off?”

Playfully swatting at Therion’s head, Cyrus gives an amused smile. “It was oddly _boring_ today once my after-class office hours ended. One thought led to another, and, _well_ …”

“And you ended up a needy bitch by the time you got home.”

Cyrus laughs. “Now _those_ are bold words from the man who _needed_ to be fucked until he screamed.”

“I—” The sentence drops there with embarrassment. It’s setting in now that _oh no_ , Alfyn knows how he sounds when he’s being railed like the absolute bottom he sometimes enjoys being.

“You…?”

“Nothing. Head empty.” When he shifts a little, he’s suddenly reminded that he’s _full_ of Cyrus’s cum as he feels it starting to leak from him. It’s not a bad feeling by any stretch, but it always feels a little odd.

“You’re so cute.” Cyrus props himself up on an elbow. “There is no truth to the names I call you or me saying I own you. Those things don’t mean anything.”

Therion squeezes gently at Cyrus’s wrist. “I know. That’s why I trust you.”

“We need to get cleaned up. Would you like a bath?”

“Yeah… Yeah, that sounds nice.”

Having a bathroom attached to their bedroom has never been so convenient prior to this point. The last thing Therion wants is to risk running into Alfyn, seeing as their next conversation is no doubt going to involve the thief being _horribly_ embarrassed. It doesn’t matter whatever objectively worse situations Alfyn has cared for him through—this one is not just humiliating, but it had been avoidable as well.

It’s strange, though, how he’s embarrassed at the thought of others overhearing. He didn’t used to care so much until _weeks_ after he and Cyrus started having sex. It was as though a switch flipped shortly after the romantic element had been introduced to their dynamic. Prior to that, he went about things with the assumption in the back of his mind that all his companions knew the sounds Cyrus was pulling out of him whenever they had the luxury of retiring for the day at a town’s inn without ever being bothered by it.

(And even if it _had_ always been embarrassing to him, it’s not as though he didn’t have Alfyn on his dick that one time, because he _absolutely_ did.)

“I’ll come bring you in when it’s ready,” Cyrus offers.

“I can go in now,” Therion protests, but even his _words_ sound weak.

“No, I would prefer you wait here. You still look wrecked and I’d prefer you to be easy on yourself as much as possible.”

Therion pouts, but he doesn’t argue things further. Cyrus stands up, adjusts his clothes despite the fact they’ll be completely off soon anyway, and heads into the washroom.

The thief pulls himself up into a sitting position, body still shaking. The front of his shirt is spattered with a few damp, sticky spots and his neck still stings from how aggressively Cyrus was sucking and biting at it.

When Cyrus returns to the bedroom, Therion looks up, his eyes refocusing. “Took you long enough,” he jokes.

“Ever the impatient one, aren’t you?” Cyrus replies, equally as joking. “Come on, the bath’s ready.”

Getting to his feet is surprisingly challenging. Therion sways a bit once he stands up, his muscles weak and his head spinning. He groans and falls against Cyrus, who’d already been prepared to catch him.

“You are a _mess_ ,” Cyrus laughs.

“Always am when you decide you wanna control me.” He’s trying to clear the sex-induced haze from his head, but from the way his sentence slurs at the end, he’s probably not doing the best job at that.

“It’s quite the look for you.” Cyrus guides him to the bathroom. He unclasps the jacket and pushes Therion’s shirt up over his head, then helps the thief into the tub without bothering to fold either one.

Cyrus _does_ , on the other hand, fold the clothes he strips from himself and places them beside the nightclothes already set out on the counter. It seems like a wasted effort because they’re going to need to be washed anyway, but Therion likes watching Cyrus do anything with his hands so he can’t complain.

When Cyrus slips into the bath to sit behind Therion, the thief settles back with a soft sigh of contentment. The water is warm and the close proximity is comfortable.

Although…

“You don’t mind this?” Therion asks, suddenly feeling horribly self-conscious.

“No?” It’s not a statement, but a question, colored with hesitation and confusion. “Do I mind what, precisely?”

Therion swallows thickly, trying to find the words that have suddenly fled him. “How I… am? My—my body, how I’ve… _you know._ ” It’s not something he wants to talk about or give more voice to than strictly necessary. He knows how thin he is, sickly and emaciated. It’s not something he wants to focus on right now, but he needs the answer to this question.

“I would much prefer if you were healthy,” Cyrus says with predictable bluntness, “but I would not say I _mind_ in the sense that you being ill makes me love you or want you less. It certainly does not.”

Therion doesn’t say anything more. That’s reassurance enough for him, comforting words that allow him to relax against Cyrus without inhibition. He leans his head back to rest it against Cyrus’s shoulder, and the scholar holds him like he’s afraid of letting go.

It’s always like this after Therion submits so completely. Cyrus holds him like he’s trying to erase every bad thing that’s left scars on Therion’s heart and mind and sense of self. Like he’s afraid if he doesn’t then something possessive or harsh that he said might be taken to heart.

* * *

After the bath, they settle into bed together. The space of the room is filled with a pleasant silence while Cyrus reads and Therion curls up with his head on the scholar’s lap. It’s an objectively less comfortable position than lying with his head on his pillow, but this sort of intimacy is far nicer.

The light is dim, but it’s enough for Cyrus to read. The scholar’s hand is in Therion’s hair, carding through it while Therion occasionally pushes against his palm. He whines quietly and wordlessly in protest whenever Cyrus pulls his hand away to flip the page and smiles against Cyrus’s thigh when the hand goes back to his hair.

Therion wishes things could be like this forever. He feels so _loved_ like this.

* * *

The next morning, Therion is stirred awake, but by what is a mystery. He doesn’t remember what his dreams entailed, but they weren’t bad, so that probably isn’t why. Sunlight is filtering into the room, but it’s become quite rare for light to disturb his sleep.

…Oh, wait.

Cyrus is asleep beside him, predictably, but his face is lightly flushed and his breathing isn’t the usual deep, relaxed pattern of sleep.

_Oh._

Therion slips one of his hands under the covers and trails it down Cyrus’s side. That earns a heavy breath, which the thief uses as encouragement. He pushes Cyrus’s hair aside to kiss at his neck as he slips a knee between his thighs.

Fuck. He’s _hard_ , and it makes something stir in the pit of Therion’s stomach.

“Therion,” Cyrus breathes. “ _Ah._ Therion… good morning to you, too.”

“Cute,” Therion murmurs against his partner’s neck. “Sounded like you were wound up and I couldn’t help it.”

Cyrus lazily moves a hand to the other’s hip. “I certainly have no complaints.”

“Good, because this’d be a little awkward otherwise.”

“I’d like to kiss you.”

Therion’s whole body is burning up with a sleepy sort of want. He kisses Cyrus and presses his knee more firmly against the scholar’s erection. Cyrus rocks down against him and groans quietly into Therion’s mouth.

They don’t need to talk for this. They could have sex like this without a single word and it wouldn’t take away from it at all. There’s definitely nothing to be said currently, because _fuck_ , it feels good to be kissing Cyrus like this.

Kissing feels _unreasonably_ good and it’s almost embarrassing quick Therion is to get fully hard. It’s in the way they both just woke up, the way they’re both cozy and sleep-addled. This is simple but perfect, and Therion doesn’t bother trying to keep down the little sounds bubbling up from his throat. Cyrus nips at Therion’s lip and slides his tongue over the other’s, and Therion moans quietly.

Want is starting to boil over into need, and Therion breaks the kiss to start moving lower. There are no objections as he hooks his fingers under Cyrus’s waistband and tugs both his sleep pants and his underwear off, and he’s given an encouraging whine when he takes the head of the scholar’s cock into his mouth. 

He sucks lightly and presses his tongue against the slit, savoring the soft sounds it pulls from Cyrus. Any other situation and Cyrus would be asking Therion _more_ and _please_ even if he hadn’t figured out what exactly he was asking for in the first place, but right now is different—patience and quiet comes easily now, for the both of them.

Therion wraps his fingers around the base of the shaft and Cyrus gasps, thighs tensing for a second. The thief lets out a breath of laughter through his nose, feeling quite self-satisfied at the reaction.

Slowly, he begins working his way down until he’s certain he’ll gag until he takes any more. He bobs his head, taking his time with the pace. The taste of precum is heavy on the back of his tongue, salty and not particularly pleasant but still _good_ because it’s _Cyrus_ and that fact _more_ than makes up for it.

A hand cards gently through his mussed hair, stopping as it catches on tangles that don’t come loose easily. Cyrus’s hand resting on his head is nice and he doesn’t think there’s anything he likes more than feeling his partner’s presence like this. He loves his hair being played with, and it’s best when it’s Cyrus.

Therion reaches below his waistband so he can jerk himself off as he works. It’ll feel better for Cyrus if he spends the rest of the blowjob moaning and whimpering around the cock in his mouth anyway. He goes slowly and carefully at first, but with how much he’s leaking already, he won’t have to wait long before he can speed up.

“Therion,” Cyrus breathes. “You are _so_ good at this. You know me effortlessly, and it’s—e-excellent— _oh_ …”

The scholar’s words make Therion whine and buck into his own touch. Cyrus gives praise and affection generously, and Therion is eternally grateful for it.

He pulls off Cyrus’s dick to place wet, messy kisses along the shaft. The scholar makes a strangled sound in his throat and his hips rock upward a fraction.

_“Therion…”_

Therion isn’t sure there’s anything hotter than his name on Cyrus’s lips when he’s all riled up—and Cyrus is all riled up _because of him_ , which is enough to send a shiver through Therion all on its own.

“Everything about you is _perfect_ ,” Cyrus continues, fighting to keep his coherency. “Perfect at this, absolutely beautiful, utterly _breathtaking_.”

Therion can tell when Cyrus is getting close. He closes his lips around the head of the scholar’s cock to suck at it again, pressing a circular motion against it with his tongue as he pumps the shaft.

“ _Therion_ , oh, you are _everything_ in the world to me. There is nothing that matches your perfection, and I truly do mean that, _ah_ — I want every part of you, every li-little piece, everything you are most proud and most ashamed of, be-because I will—I _have_ to teach you how—h-how there i-is nothing imperfect ab— _out you, oh, gods, Therion_ —”

His voice breaks as he cums across Therion’s tongue. He’s gasping out his love and undying devotion in a jumbled mess and Therion keeps sucking him through his orgasm.

It’s the desperate, heated affection that does the thief in, and he’s spilling over his hand in his underwear with a low moan.

He tries to get his bearings and sits up, panting. Cyrus props himself up, lightly grabs Therion’s forearm to pull his hand from his pants, and takes the other’s cum-covered fingers into his mouth. Therion whimpers as Cyrus sucks the mess from his hand, licking with a technique that feels more suited for giving head.

When he’s finished, he smiles at Therion, looking quite pleased with himself. “I meant everything I said.”

“I know,” Therion replies. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

* * *

Leaving his room for breakfast when Cyrus does is something he recognizes as an embarrassing mistake far too late.

Alfyn is on the couch reading something, and thankfully he greets the two of them with a brief good morning and nothing else. Worse outcomes definitely exist, especially when Therion is already too intently latched onto Cyrus’s arm to want to let go.

When Cyrus pokes his head from the kitchen to ask Alfyn if he’s interested in breakfast right now, however, Therion isn’t a fan of the response.

“I could go for some food. …But, uh, a little chat first, if ya don’t mind terribly?”

“Is there a concern?” Cyrus asks as he reaches for a serrated knife and a loaf of bread. He uncovers the bread and gets to slicing a few pieces.

Alfyn approaches and leans in the doorway. “It’s not too big a deal, I don’t think, but do you mind being a little more careful with Theri?”

Therion’s face is _burning_. He doesn’t want to be here for this, but instead of leaving, he watches Cyrus’s hands work at putting together a breakfast instead.

Contrarily, Cyrus seems oblivious to the concern. “Have I done anything detrimental to his health?”

“I mean, I really couldn’t say if you’ve crossed into _detriment_ territory, exactly, but I don’t think last night was too helpful neither. His body’s weak. You gotta be careful with it.”

Cyrus nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, this is true. I suppose I _was_ a bit physically aggressive last night… especially if you’re _aware_ I was.”

“Heard at least the last ten minutes of it. Don’t mind none, though. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, really, I’ve been an apothecary for long enough to know this ain’t a big deal. But, it’s, uh… it ain’t like his body’s strong enough to be going too hard with him, y’know?”

Therion wants to _die_. This is _mortifying_. His friend had heard him screaming Cyrus’s name and begging to be fucked and babbling about whatever the hell else was going through his head in his compromised state. He wishes he had the sort of composure Cyrus does, because the scholar seems entirely unfazed by the conversation.

“I appreciate you mentioning the concern,” Cyrus says. He steps out of Alfyn’s way, opting to sit on the countertop on the other side of the room. Therion follows him. “I apologize if it was disruptive, and I’ll be more mindful until further notice.”

“Nah, again, it ain’t a big deal. Only said something because I’m worried about injury and whatnot.”

Idle conversation continues between Cyrus and Alfyn—which is always nice to see, because Cyrus’s inclination toward simple chatter had been nonexistent when they first met—but Therion simply observes Alfyn as he put together his food. He isn’t going to be given the option _not_ to eat without a talk that’s far worse than just complying, but he’s still going to hate every second of it, so his best option is making sure he eats less than the other two.

Two plums and a small piece of bread. This will suffice. Thankfully he isn’t pestered about it either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so here's the take of the week. i can intuitively understand how people come to the conclusion that alfyn is kinda shy on the topic of sex but i..... i don't know if anyone's considered the fact that it should be a little offputting if a medical professional gets flustered by discussions of sexual nature. it just strikes me as really odd to characterize a doctor that way. i'm not telling you how to write, i'm just saying.. the apothecary thing feels relevant to consider here
> 
> another highly relevant and good take. i like the concept of therion not regarding sex as a personal thing At All but then mutual romantic feelings get tossed in the mix and then he's like, "ah. so this is the very common feeling of being embarrassed about having my sex life known by anyone at all. i've always found this to be so pointless & stupid. what the fuck is this."


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **warnings: internalized ableism**
> 
> this chapter is a lot of tough love LOL. sweet gentle words and reassurance is all fine and good but sometimes it's just better and more ethical/moral to point out a person's flaws and mistakes and why they need to stop doing things that are bad without holding back. and primrose is good at that. therion isn't the type of person who can learn to make better choices through being coddled and i'll stand by that

Adjusting to a new food routine is something Therion does begrudgingly. He’s allowed to choose whatever he wants, likely because Cyrus and Alfyn can both recognize when they’re on thin ice and won’t be able to get any further. The expectation of three ‘meals’ and a snack every day is stressful and sometimes leads to volatile outbursts when Therion is in a particularly bad mood—he’s never in a _good_ mood when he’s eating—and calming him from there is always a long process.

Occasionally he skips meals. Typically he doesn’t, but he _does_ force Alfyn and Cyrus to settle for letting him eat only a few pieces of fruit and possibly a bit of bread as a compromise. As much as he’s opened up since learning to cooperate with others, he’s started shutting down again when he has food in front of him.

He doesn’t mention that being allowed to choose what he eats and how much is suppressing weight gain. He doesn’t mention why he picks his food apart into pieces or why he chews so excessively, and he’s not sure if those things go noticed in the first place.

* * *

By the time Primrose finally arrives, Therion had almost forgotten she was coming to visit at all. She shows up with a large backpack strapped over her shoulders and her hands full of something wrapped in cloth.

She enters the house without waiting to be invited in, walking past Cyrus before he even steps out of her way. “You’re lucky I was willing to pay Tressa a visit first, because there are some nice things I got from her. The trip took longer than what I was expecting.”

Therion rolls his eyes. “How generous of you.” He can’t tell if his sarcasm is a joke or not, but he hopes it is. He’s always liked Primrose, enough that she was the first friend he made after the whole ordeal with Darius.

“Perhaps it was,” Primrose replies, “but you might hate me for it at first.”

There’s a vaguely dubious look on Alfyn’s face as he regards her despite his smile. “Easy on him, yeah?”

“Kind,” Primrose says as she continues to the kitchen, presumably to put down what she’s carrying in her hands. “Kind on him. It’d be a disservice to let this be easy.”

Whatever she’s implying, Therion doesn’t like it.

She exits the kitchen without the cloth-wrapped mystery item, slipping one backpack strap off her shoulder and slinging the bag around to her front so she can set it down properly.

With a playful grin she nods her chin in Cyrus’s direction. “Getting up to much, Professor?”

The implication takes a second to dawn on Therion, and he flushes as soon as it does. Cyrus’s neck is covered in red and purple marks.

Cyrus doesn’t pick up on the implication, however, but it’s doubtful he would’ve been fazed if he had. “Not much other than the usual. But I’ve been offered official librarian training that will be starting soon! Work slows down this time of year, so it’s perfect.”

A pang of guilt hits Therion as he realizes he doesn’t _remember_ anything about that. It’s something he knows he would have been told at some point, but this feels like the first time he’s hearing of it. How _long_ ago was he offered this? And _why_ is it so hard to remember something so simple? But he stays quiet, because there’s a sense of shame in the very idea of asking about it.

“I’d wish you luck, but I don’t think you need it,” Primrose says. “Now that you mention librarian work, I’m almost surprised you didn’t choose that over teaching.”

“Oh, I don’t think I’d be content working as a librarian. I do quite like reading—but what use is knowledge unless I can share it?”

“Ah, now _that_ checks out.” She opens her backpack to rummage through it, retrieving a bag made of translucent fabric full of little pinkish things with an envelope attached to it. She tosses it at Therion, and he barely reacts quick enough to catch it. _Damn_ , his reflexes must be bad, at least compared to what they had been. “These are for you.”

Upon closer inspection, it appears the things in the bag are candy. They’re individually wrapped in what looks like wax paper, and the bag containing them is tied shut with a thin purple ribbon.

“These are…?” Therion asks.

“Taffies,” Primrose replies, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

He pulls the envelope free with a little tug to properly look at it. It’s sealed with pink wax with his name across the paper in dark calligraphy that’s unmistakably Tressa’s. That means the taffies are from her as well. It feels odd to be receiving something nice from her. His relationship with her is a complex and confusing one, preserved solely through Cyrus and Primrose and Alfyn. Those three are the only ones he considers _friends_ now that their travels are over—through no fault of anyone else, he just does an abysmal at maintaining friendships—and it’s difficult to believe Tressa would be too eager to write up a letter for someone she hardly likes in the first place.

(Truthfully, though, it’d be nice to know she was thinking of him because she cared. He can’t pinpoint when, but after a while, he began to see her as an annoying little sister who he was prepared to kill for regardless of how many times she got on his nerves. They managed to get along often enough—usually within the context of amicability that lasted just long enough to get up to trouble—for it to feel like it might have been reciprocal. But he’s not going to be the first to say it, because it’d feel pretty damn weird to vocalize that he viewed a teenager who openly hated him for the first solid while of knowing him as his sister without knowing it to be mutual.)

“How much did you pay her to write this?” Therion says, halfway joking.

Primrose rolls her eyes. “Like she’d ask for payment for something like that.”

“Did you bribe her?”

“…What.”

“You heard me.” Therion fiddles with the wax seal, though he has no intent to open it yet.

“Why would I need to _bribe_ her?”

“Last I checked, she’s not the biggest fan of me.”

Primrose raises her eyebrows with an expression of disbelief. Alfyn’s hand shoots up to cover his mouth as he chokes on a laugh.

And it’s Cyrus who speaks first, as though he’s the only one not too stunned to articulate a reply. “I think quite some time has passed since she’s viewed you in a negative light, love.”

What the hell.

“…Are you guys fucking with me?”

“Therion, how in the world is this a _shock_ to you?” Primrose asks, almost incredulous.

“Am I the _last_ to know this?”

“Most likely, yes.”

“Well, shit.”

He’s not sure how to adjust his feelings after being caught off guard by all this. Since _when_ did things go beyond her tolerating him?

His index finger slips under the tab and rips up the seal so he can take the letter out. Tressa’s handwriting is aesthetically pleasing to look at, swirly in a way that’s a bit childish but not messy. It’s more of a challenge to read than the text of most books, but not by much. He turns so the small of his back is pressed against the arm of the sofa, not wanting to risk Alfyn looking over his shoulder.

> _Therion:_
> 
> _I had these candies made specifically for you, so you’d better like them! (And if you don’t, then blame Prim, not me! She’s the one who told me they’d be a good choice, and she knows more about what you’d like than I do.) Spiced apple flavored. I think they taste pretty good, so I hope you can enjoy them too._
> 
> _Prim mentioned that you’re really sick right now. She wouldn’t say more than that, but she said these would help make you feel better. Just be careful not to eat too many at a time or you might make yourself feel worse, but I don’t think Cyrus would let you do something dumb like that anyway. (Prim said Alfyn is there too. Lucky you, he’s so fun to spend time with!)_
> 
> _Atlasdam seems like a fun place to set up shop at for a while. I’ll have to ask Cyrus if there are any rules I should know about beforehand, but I think I’ll be heading there sometime soon. I know you do a lot of super stupid things, but hold off on doing that until you get better. I don’t want you dying before I get to see you again, dumbass! I know you really suck at taking care of yourself, but you’d better figure out how to! Or ask Cyrus and Alfyn for help. Just until you’re not ill anymore. I mean it, Therion. I want to see you again._
> 
> _– Tressa_

Therion doesn’t like the shakiness of the last few sentences. It forces him to recognize the fact this is hurting her, and there’s nothing he hates more than having to see his actions affect other people. The reason he harms and neglects _himself_ is so that he can take out the feelings surrounding his dangerously low self-esteem and his past trauma (but maybe ‘trauma’ is too strong a word) and his frequent suicidal ideation without it harming other people. He can’t tell if his avoidance of acknowledging it is because he’s naïve or paranoid or heartless. He’d do anything for it not to be the third option, but he also thinks things might be easier if it is.

“Therion?” Alfyn says.

The thief lifts his eyes from the letter. “Yeah?”

“You’re lookin’ a little upset there.”

_Fuck._ Either it hit harder than he thought or his ability to hide his emotions is slipping—or _both_ , which is an especially scary thought.

It’s just that he can picture Tressa with a pen in her hand, trembling with emotion and trying not to cry over his useless ass. He can picture her upset and hurt and unable to hide it because of _his_ shitty fucking actions. The worst part is that he could stop at any time but still refuses to.

“I’m fine,” Therion grits out, folding the paper and tucking it back into the envelope. “It’s just some sentimental shit.”

“See? Of course she likes you,” Primrose says, like she has stakes in convincing him of it.

“How was _I_ supposed to know that? She’s never told me.”

Primrose pauses. She crosses her arms and sits on the coffee table, _‘time to cut the shit’_ written all over her posture and the way she looks at him. “This isn’t going to feel good—but I’ll wager that the only reason you didn’t realize is because you don’t know how to register that someone likes you unless they regard you positively from the beginning or they reassure you directly sometime later on.”

Therion feels his face go hot with a mix of humiliation and anger. He’s pretty sure it would have hurt less if she lodged a dagger in his stomach instead. He wants to answer, but all he can do is swallow thickly and keep his eyes fixed on her as he pretends he’s not ready to retreat.

“Prim,” Alfyn says, and it would have been a reprimand if he didn’t sound so nervous. “I don’t think…”

“You’re right,” Therion mutters. “But I sure as fuck don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about _anything_ you’re here to explain to me, Prim.”

“One of the taffies, then,” Primrose says. “Or two. Two of the taffies and we can drop everything difficult for now. Or I can go get the pastry I brought from the kitchen?”

Therion has half a mind to call her a stupid bitch, but he knows he’d regret it immediately. As unreliable as his foresight can be, sometimes it functions, and thank the gods that now is one of those times. But to Primrose’s credit, she’s _far_ less willing to take Therion’s bullshit than the other two are, so there are worse people to accidentally call stupid bitches.

“I’m not hungry,” Therion says. He can hear the defiance draining from his voice.

“Because you ruined your body’s hunger signals?” Primrose challenges. “Food isn’t _only_ for when you’re hungry, anyway, or have you broken your brain so bad you’ve forgotten that?”

Cyrus is reaching up to unclasp his jacket from his throat, and Therion glares at him. The _last_ thing he needs is to have Cyrus’s comfort make him look weaker.

“Listen,” the dancer continues, “I _know_ you’re having an awful time right now. I did too. But sitting here acting like you don’t have problems when _everyone_ can see right through you is just insulting.”

“Bullshit.”

Primrose laughs, dry and sarcastic and disingenuous. “No, sweetheart, everyone can tell your head is a little sick. I just throw out my manners to talk about this because I think you deserve better than having me step on eggshells to preserve your feelings. I’m sorry this hurts, but if I learned the hard way without guidance, then you’re going to learn with mine.”

Therion doesn’t reply. As much as he wishes she wasn’t, she’s _right_.

The dancer stands up and turns to Cyrus. “I’m going to be stealing your little thief for a while, Professor, and I need you to stay away from your bedroom for a while. I don’t want you back there to check if you can come in or ask if we need anything, because I don’t need any eavesdroppers.”

There’s a sense of both comfort and danger that comes with the idea of a one-on-one conversation with Primrose away from everyone else. It’ll make any potential breakdowns more difficult to put off for later, and she’ll have an easier time cutting straight to the truth of the matter without softening the blow of her honesty.

But there’ll be no one else to watch her call him out and build him back up.

Primrose takes Therion’s wrist and tugs at it, and he follows the silent instruction to stand. She approaches Cyrus and holds her free hand out. “Your cloak, Professor.”

“It’s a fucking _jacket_ ,” Therion mumbles, trying to ignore the fact that she apparently already knows it’s something of a comfort item to him.

“I’d argue it’s a jacket in name only,” Cyrus says. “Functionally, it’s a cloak. I have _never_ used the sleeves outside of our Frostlands adventures.”

“Cy… Cy, look, I love you so much, but I really don’t know how much longer I can live with you refusing to accept that that’s a jacket.”

“Don’t be so rude,” Primrose scolds.

The scholar sighs dramatically. “This is the same man who threatened divorce over a spider, by the way.”

“Have you reconsidered your priorities since then, Therion?”

_“Well,”_ Alfyn pipes up, “more info might help here. Can’t fault a man who calls for a divorce if his husband ain’t friendly with spiders.”

_“We aren’t married!”_ Cyrus exclaims. “We haven’t even gotten _married_ yet and he’s already considering a divorce! And you are _defending_ him? Woe is me, truly, if one of my closest friends is taking my _boyfriend’s_ side on this.”

Alfyn laughs. “I mean, you’re close enough to being married, don’t ya think?”

“Cy’s taking me out of context anyway,” Therion says. “I made it explicitly clear that I was planning on marrying him specifically to get a divorce afterward if he thinks picking on a tarantula is okay, because that would be the morally correct thing to do.”

“Well, shit, man, that’s airtight logic if I’ve ever heard it.”

“Do either of you _think_ before you _speak_?” Primrose asks, trying to keep herself from smiling.

Alfyn feigns confusion despite his grin. “Pardon me, do I… what was that?”

The dancer rolls her eyes with a breath of laughter. “Yes, I suppose that’s about the best I could expect.” She takes Cyrus’s jacket from him and pulls lightly at Therion’s wrist. “Now before Alfyn can talk you all the way into that divorce, let’s go. Best to get this over with as soon as possible, yeah?”

Therion takes a steadying breath and nods, knowing what he’s in for. His mood shifts instantly to accommodate the anticipation. “Yeah. All right.”

In the bedroom, Therion settles down at the foot of the bed with the jacket across his lap and Primrose settles herself into Cyrus’s reading chair. She crosses her legs, props her elbow up on the arm, and rests her jaw on her fist.

“None of this is going to feel nice,” she says.

“We could skip it,” Therion suggests.

“You may as well accuse me of being a bad friend if you think I’d do that.” She pushes a lock of hair behind her ear and adjusts her posture slightly. “You look like shit, Therion.”

Therion scoffs. “Yeah. Thanks for that.”

“That’s an odd amount of sarcasm, considering I just told you something you like hearing.”

Suddenly speechless, Therion wordlessly stares at her. He searches her expression and her body language for any clues to help him determine just how many steps ahead of him she is. Of all his former traveling companions, she’s always been the best at staying ahead of _everyone_ , including him. It’s no different now, and unfortunately he has a feeling that he won’t be getting the upper hand over her—especially not with his recent cognitive decline.

That begs the question of _why_ he wants the upper hand so badly. He wants to be a good friend and a good partner, and hates himself for every failure he makes. Why is he always so averse to the hard-hitting conversations? Why does he want to do anything other than sit here and listen to what Primrose has to say? Why is he so _scared_ of learning how to be better?

“You do, _don’t you_?” Primrose prompts.

Therion opens his mouth but it takes several seconds before he can actually _say_ something. “…In a way.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Is it because everything hurts and nothing is easy? Or maybe it’s because you like looking sick? Finally _believing_ you’re sick isn’t so hard when everyone can see it, and when your loved ones have to watch you die and wonder why you won’t let them do anything about it.”

It feels unfair to have to hear that. Suddenly Therion is dizzy, trying to rationalize while already knowing he can’t. This isn’t fucking fair.

As though Primrose is privy to what he’s thinking, she says, “I know you want to think I’m wrong. If I am, go on and say it. Tell me all about how wrong I am.”

“…You’re not,” Therion says. He grips the fabric of Cyrus’s jacket, still refusing to wear it in front of Primrose. She may have already been aware of it being a comforting thing for him, but wrapping it over his shoulders would feel too much like an admission of weakness.

“I know, but thank you for your honesty.” She sighs. “Look, I know it’s fun and validating to force the people around you to watch you kill yourself while insisting you still have things under control, but I need you to come back to the real world for a while. You aren’t in control, you’re absolutely miserable, and you’ve probably spent this whole time treating Cyrus like shit.”

“I _do_ have things under control.” But when he says it this time, it doesn’t feel as truthful as it usually does. It’s a response void of any substance, only meant to shut down criticisms.

Primrose rolls her eyes. “If control to you looks like deteriorating your mind and body because you’re afraid of something that you need to stay alive, then yes, you are perfectly in control.”

“I’m _afraid_ of just about fuck-all.”

“Then why didn’t you have a taffy when I told you to?”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Why can’t you eat when you’re hungry?”

“What’s the point?”

“If something tastes good, why should you wait until you’re _hungry_ to eat it? Especially if it’s just candy. Since when is candy _ever_ for when you’re hungry?”

“Why do you care so much?”

“A thief by trade, but terrible at dodging. You’ve really taken a battleax to everything you’ve ever been good at just to preserve this bullshit sense of control, haven’t you?”

Therion’s breath catches and his chest constricts. He wants to scream at her about how she’s wrong and about how he hates her. He wants to throw a fit about how she just wants to tear him down and that she has no idea what she’s talking about. He wants to yell about how out of line it is that she’s willing to make so many heavy, loaded assumptions about him.

But instead, he stays quiet and stares down at his hands as he bunches up the cloth of the jacket in his fists.

“I’m not saying any of this because I enjoy making you feel bad,” Primrose continues, her voice softening somewhat.

“Could’ve fucking fooled me,” Therion spits back.

“I don’t doubt it, but you need this. You’re destroying yourself while calling it control because that hurts less than admitting that you are scared and miserable and probably being horribly unfair to the people who you’re _forcing_ to watch you die. Why is it so bad to just eat?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t give me that, Therion. You know why. I _know_ you do.”

He glares at her. “What the fuck would you know?”

“I’ve been in the exact same place you’re at right now. I wasn’t making myself sick, but I was certainly starving, and it’s all to the same end anyway. I’d like an answer. I’m not here to play cat and mouse with you.”

Therion pauses. He’s cornered in a way he never would be with Cyrus or Alfyn, and in a way he’s seldom ever been in his life. There’s something admirable about Primrose’s straightforwardness and refusal to entertain bullshit, but he has little else but contempt for those particular traits of hers currently.

“Come on,” she prompts. “I _know_ you can do this. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

“Because,” Therion says, and his voice is already shaking. “Because I’m worthless and broken and _empty_ , and it feels so fucking good to look it.”

Alfyn would have missed a beat at that, befuddled and grasping at straws to try to figure out the correct thing to say next. Cyrus would have either blanked entirely or damn near started crying.

But Primrose takes the confession without so much as a pause. She looks sad—in an _‘I know how brutal this is’_ sort of way rather than an _‘I can’t imagine how much this hurts’_ sort of way. The safety in the sentiment makes him feel far too vulnerable.

“I’m sorry you understand this sort of pain,” she says. “You’re going to die if you keep this up. You’ve made it through too much for me to watch you fall to your own hand.”

It’s the same sort of compassionate sincerity he’d grown used to hearing late at night in the shadows of a quiet inn when she would sit by his side for hours to protect him from himself as he tried to choke back his tears with varying levels of success. He _knows_ this tone of voice and it works better than any sedative could.

“I’m dying,” Therion says, his voice small and unsteady. It’s what Alfyn has been trying—and ultimately failing—to get him to acknowledge for the past couple of weeks. His body is deteriorating, his mental faculties are wearing thin, it’s only a matter of time until his heart shuts off. But it’s hearing it from Primrose that’s finally making it sink in. No medical specifics necessary—just a woman who has done the same thing to herself telling him that living like this isn’t possible for _anyone_.

“Unfortunately so,” Primrose agrees. “You look like you could collapse any second.”

“I don’t think I feel that bad.”

“I know you don’t. You wouldn’t have gotten to this point if you realized how awful you feel.”

“But I _don’t_ feel that bad.” He wishes his words sounded as true as he wanted them to be.

“Have you been sleeping well? Doesn’t it hurt just to sit or lie down? Are you getting those horrid pains in your legs yet? Don’t you get bloated after eating _anything_? Doesn’t your chest ache? How’s your memory? What about your coordination? What about your energy? Aren’t you _freezing_?”

Primrose’s questions are not offered in quick succession, each one instead serving as a calculated blow. The force of each one has time to hit before the next does, which is far worse than if she’d rapid-fired them all. She’s nothing if not patiently precise.

“The look on your face tells me everything,” she says. “I went through all of that as well. But here’s the question I think you’ll hate the most.” She pauses, likely to give him a moment to ready himself. “You haven’t been treating Cyrus very well lately, have you?”

“The fuck would you know about that?” Therion shoots back, and the automatic nature of the reply is undeniably incriminating.

“So _have_ you been? Or have you been acting like a short-tempered brat with no patience or impulse control?”

“How the _fuck_ would you know _anything_ about that?”

She taps the side of her head with her index finger. “Because when you’re always running on empty, your emotions get more explosive and your foresight gets worse. It’s an uphill battle for your body to remain operational at all, so everything that’s not completely essential shuts off to save as much energy as it can. Alfyn’s taught you all this, hasn’t he?”

“It… hasn’t really…” Therion trails off, unsure of what else to say.

“It hasn’t clicked because you don’t _feel_ like you’re dying and no one else who’s been through the same has told you that you are.”

Where the _hell_ did she get the right to hit the mark so perfectly every time? There are harder things in life to be forced to confront, Therion supposes, but that doesn’t mean he’s particularly thrilled about _this_.

“I guess,” he mumbles. He wants to wrap himself up in Cyrus’s jacket and be done with this conversation. He’s aware that Primrose knows he wants that, too, but that doesn’t make it easier for him to give in.

“This is difficult. I know. But what we need isn’t always what we want, and what we want isn’t always what we need.”

Therion gives a slight nod of agreement, but stays silent. It’s a wonder he’s not crying with how badly he wants to, and he doesn’t want to test his limits by speaking.

“We can be done for now,” Primrose says. “This isn’t going to be fun for you, but there are worse things than wrangling back your control over yourself. Such as dying horribly from your body shutting down, for example.”

He wishes she wasn’t so good at driving the point home—but she’s right, and what he needs _isn’t_ something he’s going to want.

Part of his mind is pressing him to ask about what it was like for her. How did it go? How did it feel? How did she learn that she needed to stop without having someone else to lecture her on it? But he doesn’t want to think about this anymore. He knows she’s going to draw him back to the subject and corner him again, but until she does, he’d rather leave this conversation to end here now that he has the chance to.

There are more difficult things to cope with than temporary uncertainty, anyhow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> primrose my beloved


End file.
